


A Different Path

by Ulfserkr



Category: Zootopia (2016)
Genre: Alternate Universe, Alternate Universe - Dark, Alternate Universe - Dystopia, Anthropomorphic, Banter, Bullying, Discrimination, Dystopia, Emotional/Psychological Abuse, Established Relationship, Explicit Sexual Content, F/M, Falling In Love, Flushed Romance | Matesprits, Friends to Lovers, Government Conspiracy, Hurt/Comfort, Inexperience, Interspecies Awkwardness, Interspecies Relationship(s), Interspecies Romance, Knotting, Loss of Virginity, Love, Mates, Police Brutality, Racism, Resolved Sexual Tension, Romance, Segregation, Sex, TAME Collar(s), Time Travel, Torture, Virgin Judy Hopps, Virgin Nick Wilde, War, ZooDystopia - Freeform
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2016-08-05
Updated: 2017-09-01
Packaged: 2018-07-29 12:38:18
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 20
Words: 325,677
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/7684828
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Ulfserkr/pseuds/Ulfserkr
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>It's been a year and a half since the incident with night howlers. Our well-matched partners, Nick Wilde and Judy Hopps, have since become a couple. Following a night of intimacy in the course of which they both reflect on their relationship and what their lives might have been without each other, they find themselves in an alternate universe where things have taken a much darker turn. Their first order of business to find each other and the next is to survive in their new environment—even more hostile to their relationship than their own world. Will their love be able to overcome the harsher prejudices here? And what will they do when they confront their alternate universe selves?</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. A First Time for Everything

**Author's Note:**

> I welcome any and all criticism pertaining to the story. If I miss a bit of grammar here or there or wherever please, for Heaven's sake: let me know so I can fix it. Stylistically my wording may be a bit weird, but if there's something that strikes you a mistake or an error let me know so that I can fix that, too; and yes, I do fix mistakes that are pointed out to me. Speaking from personal experience, nothing can take me out of a story more than a misspelt word or a grammatical mistake—especially if they're too common. Any other comments, questions, or concerns? Feel free to PM me.
> 
> Disclaimer: At this point, I suppose I ought to add that this is a work of fanfiction and, as such, has no claim whatsoever on the characters of Nick Wilde and Judy Hopps who are the sole property of The Walt Disney Company. In no way have I sought money, monetary value, nor profit of any kind for the writing of this story.
> 
> Content Advisory: This first chapter couldn't be more citrusy if it were made from concentrated citric acid. In spite of that, this is to me primarily a Romantic love story with great deal of drama thrown in so if you're not as into it, rest assured that the story itself will pick up almost immediately after the first chapter. Just to be clear, though, this first chapter is Not Safe For Work.

 

After she finished popping the popcorn, Judy came in carrying the bowl and settled next to Nick who was already seated on the couch and opened some beers for the two of them. "What're we watching?" she asked as she pulled a blanket over her legs. "You wouldn't tell me over the phone."

"It's a surprise," he said as he clapped twice. The lights turned down in response.

"Ooh la la! You know it always impresses me when you harness the power of fire," she said dryly.

"Only the best for my girl," he replied, affecting an arrogant tone.

She rolled her eyes and smiled cheerfully. "Just start the damn thing." She saw the Barkbuster DVD case sitting on the coffee table in front of them and picked up casually, to inspect it. "'It Ate Everyone'?" she asked as she read the title. "Nick, did you rent _another_ horror movie?" she asked in annoyance.

"Aww! It was supposed to be a surprise!" he said in mock disappointment.

"There's no surprise in this movie." She replied flatly. "The ending's given away in the title!"

"You can't know what's going to happen!"

"I do, Nick! I know exactly what's going to happen! It's just gonna be some stupid horror movie set in modern times featuring animals set upon by some unknown creature in the midst of some obscure jungle!"

"Oh, come on, Carrots! Horror's great, just give it a chance! Besides, you were working tonight which is why _I_ got to pick the movie this time and you said it was fine. And anyway, you're wrong: I bet the movie's _totally_ different!" he said as he fumbled for the remote, switched over to the DVD input channel, and hit play. Judy sighed in resignation and settled back against Nick to watch the show.

It turned out to be a horror movie set in modern times featuring prey animals being set upon by some unknown creature in the midst of some obscure jungle. Judy sat in rapt attention, in spite of herself, as the young heroine-rabbit ran across the screen, screaming as the shadowed creature in pursuit of her yowled loudly. As the tension mounted and the creature got closer Judy hid her face in Nick's shoulder and murmured, "Nick, just tell me when the scary part's over!"

"It's a horror movie, Carrots; the whole thing's supposed to be scary."

"But this part's _really_ scary!"

"'Cause of the bunny?"

"Not that! I just hate the tension!"

"There's nothing to be scared of. Monsters aren't real. Animals don't murder each other—Oh, wait, yeah they do. But still, I mean, these movies are all alike, as you said. Just wait: when they get to the end it'll turn out the butler did it."

Judy cringed as she heard more screaming from the victim and hid her face more as she emphasised, "Nick, just tell me when it's over!"

Nick shrugged and continued watching for a few moments before smirking to himself, a devious plot forming in his mind. He sighed as the screams from the TV started to die down and said, casually, "The scary part's over, now; you can look."

Nick moved his arm away as Judy let out a sigh and turned to face the screen when the victim let out a horrified scream as creature suddenly set upon her and tore her apart. Judy brought her paws to her mouth as an _actual_ terrified scream tore from her lips so loudly that it reverberated through Nick's whole apartment. Nick bent his ears back and covered them until her screaming stopped then reached forward with the remote and paused the movie.

"Nicholas P. Wilde!" Judy shouted as she lost her temper, "what on Earth is _wrong_ with you?!" Her fury was wafting from her in potent waves to which, had Nick been a smarter fox, he might've paid more attention.

Instead, Judy's anger was met with howls of laughter on Nick's end as he clapped the lights back on. As irritated with him as she was she had to mentally applaud him for his clever prank. "I swear, Nick, I'm going to get you back for that!"

Nick's laughter came to an abrupt stop when a voice from the next apartment shouted through the walls. "Would the two of you shut up?! Some of us have to work in the morning!"

"Sorry!" Judy shouted through the wall, "That was me! We were watching a scary movie!"

"I don't care! Just please shut up or keep it down!" replied the neighbour.

"That sounds distinctively like something that isn't my problem," said Nick to Judy.

"What'd you say?!" came the rough voice again.

"I said . . . go to sleep . . . ." Nick pinned his ears back and hoped that his comments would be taken at face value. When no more was heard from the other side of the wall, he finally turned to Judy. "My neighbour's a rhino and you _don't_ want to piss him off. But seriously, at least _we_ don't have work in the morning."

Judy said nothing but gave Nick an annoyed look. In a huff she sat back down next to him on the couch, her arms folded tightly.

"So . . ." said Nick anxiously, "did you wanna finish the movie?"

Judy closed her eyes and sighed before breaking into a laugh. Nick knew how to make her smile, even and especially when he did something to annoy her. It was part of what'd kept their relationship going as long as it had. For as much Nick was able to drive her crazy, he was always able to charm his way out of trouble with her. Even so, when her laughter melted away she fell silent for a moment. "That was mean," she said as she turned to Nick.

"There's nothing to be afraid of when you have wild beast on your side . . ." Nick said playfully.

Judy rolled her eyes and giggled slightly. She allowed herself to melt into the soft cushions as she tried to voice her thoughts. "It's not that. I think stuff like that . . . it's . . . it reminds me too much of . . . . Well, of what we were facing before," she said quietly. "I can usually stand it and I like it, but there are good days and bad days and I guess today was worse than I thought, Nick. I'm sorry. I didn't mean to spoil anything, it's just that lately I _have_ been dreaming of that time with the night howlers. A lot of it about you and the other predators in the city." She sighed loudly as she turned to face Nick. "I've been dreaming, for some reason, that we were living in a world where evil won. A world where all the predators lost their minds."

"Why didn't you call?" asked Nick, now showing some concern.

"I just went back to bed. I was tired. Then after today and the mountain of paperwork I had to do, a few to do with some missing mammals, I just forgot. I didn't even remember it until we got around that part of the movie."

Nick switched off the TV and turned to face Judy after setting the remote back on the coffee table. "Hey, that's over now, though," he said softly as he put his paw on her shoulder.

"I know it's over," she said quietly yet firmly, as though to remind herself of that fact. After a pause she looked away and said "Do you remember what it was like seeing animals acting normal one minute and then changing? Being one way at one moment, then suddenly seeing that mammal totally lose their reason the next? Nick, good and innocent animals could have ended up dead-" Nick sighed as she spoke "-and they would have been forced into becoming murderers. I know we've hashed this through and talked about it but . . . ."

Nick nodded silently and stared off at nothing in particular. "It's not over," he finished for her.

It had been a year and a half since the incident with the night howlers. Judy and Nick had gone from friends and close partners to couple within that space. The fallout had taught the both of them a lesson: Zootopian society could easily be dismantled through fear spread by anyone immoral enough to do so. Together, though, Nick and Judy had striven to show by example that predator and prey could live side by side; not self-consciously, though: They aimed themselves toward simply doing it. Judy had long dreamt of the utopia the city could become and which she had naïvely imagined was already in existence when she arrove.

"I have dreams about those days too, Carrots," said Nick, breaking the brief silence they'd fallen into; "but being here and having you with me—I've become a different animal. I always thought I was going to be alone. I mean, I had my friends—hustlers too, of course—but I was lonely. I'd hide it, of course, with drinking and other . . . uh . . . less-legal pastimes," he said as he gave Judy a sidelong glance. "I never would've thought that I'd end up opening myself up to a bunny and I can't imagine what it'd be like for me to lose you. I'd probably just end up quitting."

"Quitting?" asked Judy.

"Quitting," he nodded gravely. He let out a sigh and wiped a paw over his face. "Giving up," he continued. "Maybe your life would've ended up a bit nicer than mine. I never thought I'd've ended up with anyone. So yeah, learning to be alone was easier when all I had to worry about was the next hustle."

"You never should've had to," she murmured. "What happened to you during your childhood was terrible."

He took her paw, the mask of confidence fallen from his face. "You changed my life," he said. "You were the first animal in a long time who thought I had more in me than what I was on the outside." Nick put his face in his paws as he remembered some of the dreams that had plagued his sleep before and after he joined the ZPD. "Judy, if I'd ended up killing you, if our plan had gone wrong—or something else had ended up happening you . . ." he trailed off as his voice became shaky. "Anyway . . . yeah, I have dreams. Nightmares where you're gone, I'm living the life of a huckster, where I'm learning to be alone and every day I get further and further away from being able to be happy in my own skin. Living a life where . . . where no one sees me. Where all I'm doing is forcing myself to accept that I'm just a shifty fox no one can trust or . . . or love . . . ." He glanced at her as he said this and her eyes met his.

She saw his distress and rubbed his back "Hey, Nick, you have me, now. I know it's hypocritical of me to say that some days I feel like things could go wrong, that it's not over, but those days for you are over. At least in those days you had your friends looking out for you."

"But no one like you, Carrots." He turned toward her, then, and tilted her head up as he kissed her. Judy reached for his face and caressed it. When they broke off the kiss, Judy leant against his shoulder and sighed comfortably as he put his arm around her.

"You don't have to be alone anymore. I'm not going anywhere."

"You mean it?" said Nick teasingly. He looked down at her and raised an eyebrow. "Just keep reminding me of that every five minutes, please," he finished dryly as he tried to break up the serious pall that had come over them.

Judy giggled and gave him a peck on the cheek before hopping into his lap and kissing him again. Nick tilted his ears back as the kiss deepened. When she broke off the kiss Nick looked at her longingly. "So in answer to your question, yes. I mean it."

"Why don't you try convincing me a bit more?" he replied, grinning from ear to ear.

"By hanging out with you more?" she smiled teasingly as she hopped off his lap. Nick's smile dropped in disappointment. "How about we just finish the movie?"

"You sure?" said Nick, surprised that she'd be willing to continue.

"Yeah. I'm good. It just makes me feel better to talk with you. About anything."

"I do too, Carrots," he smiled. "As long as it's not stuff from Open University: Seems like every time they explain a new scientific concept I have an existential crisis over my place in the universe."

"I know. Which reminds me, did you hear that there's a possibility that the whole universe is really just a hologram and that nothing is real?"

Nick's eyes narrowed in mock annoyance. "Thanks for telling me. Because I don't already have problems convincing myself that I've made it and that I really do have you in my life."

Judy let out another giggle and melted when Nick kissed her again. Judy wrapped her arms around his neck and pulled him closer and hopped back into his lap. They broke the kiss only to reignite it. Soon their kisses became more and more heated, lasting longer, an odd snowball effect as their touches became more daring—more possessive. They continued until Nick suddenly broke off. "Carrots, what . . . what do you want to do?"

By way of answer, Judy reached her paws forward and began slowly unfastening the buttons of his shirt. "Well . . ." she said "do you wanna mess around a little . . . ?" she trailed off timidly, never quite sure how to get things started in that regard. Her eyes flashed with desire, the warm flush Nick felt beneath her fur belying her timid nature.

"Are you sure? We could just finish the movie and go to bed, if you want."

"I know, and I am a little tired but . . . I do kinda wanna . . . well, you know . . ."

The fox chuckled at her embarrassment. "You just want me to show it to you again," he replied, teasing his little bunny.

She bit her lower lip and her ears reddened deeply as she pinned them back, but there was nevertheless a thrill about seeing him naked that she couldn't deny, and she gave a shallow nod.

"It's okay if you do," he murmured as he moved his muzzle from her neck to her ear and lightly kissed her there.

"But, do you think your neighbour'll hear us?" she asked, though her worries were quickly evaporating under his touch.

Nick pulled back and shook his head. "He never has before. Or if he has he hasn't said anything. I wouldn't worry." At this point, however, Nick really just wanted to keep going. He'd felt himself start to harden as she squirmed; the same tightening, gnawing sensation in the pit of his stomach—the sense of raw desire—was a feeling he knew he was sharing with her as it started to light within them. Without waiting for an answer, while her head was turned away, he nuzzled her exposed neck while running his paws up her shirt.

"Now that you bring it up, though, I wouldn't mind seeing you naked, either . . . ." He growled and nipped lightly at joining of her ear and the side of her face.

Judy closed her eyes, letting out a gasp. "Nick!" she exclaimed quietly as he nibbled his way down to her neck again. He moved his paws lower causing Judy to let out a cry of surprised pleasure when his claws began to scratch the fabric of her jeans at the joining of her thighs, sending thrilling vibrations through her intimate areas.

In the time they'd been together as a couple, their relationship had progressed to the point where they had touched and thoroughly explored each other's bodies. While they'd always stopped short of coupling—neither of them certain of their compatibility in that regard—their physical intimacy had nevertheless progressed to where they'd been able to enjoy each other carnally, giving and taking as they shared in mutually pleasuring each other.

As Nick continued his ministration through her pants, Judy unwound her paws from Nick's neck and used them to pull off her shirt while leaning forward to keep herself balanced. Then, with quick dexterity, she finished unbuttoning Nick's shirt, exposing his furry torso. She took notice of the tent in his trousers beneath her and, while the fox remained focused on the massage of her lower body, she reached down between them and undid his pants finding, as usual, that he wore no underwear. For some reason she found this habit of his surprisingly erotic. She felt her chest tighten as desire overtook her. She looked down, unabashedly marvelling at the sight of him. His proud member popped up, red and swollen from need, and she unzipped his pants as far as she could to give it as much room as she could.

Gently she reached down again, carefully wrapped her paw around his erection, and ran her palm up and down his whole length. Nick paused what he was doing to Judy through the fabric of her jeans, raised his head, and let out a hum of pleasure. His paws dropped to his side as he simply revelled in her touch. Judy paused and spat in her paw before taking his member again, running it slowly up and down his length again, though now focusing her thumb on rubbing the underside of his cock. The fox flushed profusely beneath his fur. His eyes were squeezed shut in pleasure as she slowly and tauntingly touched him. Reaching down another paw she lightly cupped and massaged his balls. With his moans encouraging her, the look on his face begging her for more, she began to quicken her strokes.

After a few moments she looked up from his manhood and found him staring at her intensely as lust and desire filled the focus of his vision; his breath had quickened and there was a slight whine to every breath he took—a feature she found endearing and indicative of a certain loss of self-control. Seriously intending to make this a night to remember for the both of them, she removed her paws from him and hopped off his lap. She nimbly removed her jeans and was pleased to see Nick get up and finish removing his shirt and trousers, stepping out of them.

While taking the time to fold and move her clothes over to the side of the couch she was surprised when Nick hugged her from behind. "Gotcha!" he said loudly as Judy let out a suppressed scream.

Before she could say anything else, in one fluid movement, he'd swept her off her feet and laid her down on the large couch before quickly moving down her body, putting his head between her thighs. Before she could say anything to Nick for having frightened her, he gave a long, slow lick to her soft, intimate folds. The pleasure radiated through her body as though a hose of warm pleasure were dispersing from the centre of her thighs. She let out a moan of pleasure as she felt warmth spread throughout her being and gently raised her hips to his muzzle. He licked again, this time dipping the tip of his tongue into her hole, having learned over the course of their relationship what she liked. The bunny reached down and softly yet quickly gripped the fur on his head as she let out cry of pleasure. Nick smiled to himself, proud of the reaction he was eliciting in the bunny whom he considered his mate. He continued his work, feeling as he did her hips thrust upward against his maw at a faster and faster rhythm as she strove for completion. "N-Nick . . ." she gasped out, though for the most part keeping quiet with the odd cry or gasp emanating from her.

At last the dam of pleasure that had built in her core seemed to reach its peak, nearly breaking as she cried out, "God, Nick, don't stop . . . ! Don't . . . stop . . . !" Nick held her hips still and pushed his muzzle as deeply into her warm sex as he could while he continued licking and tenderly nipping the area, working his jaw quickly as he strove to finish her off. Suddenly, Judy's paws, which had up to that point been either gripping the couch or the fox's ears tightly, snapped to her mouth, muffling it as a cry of pleasure escaped her as the dam of pleasure welled within her and broke free.

The tension in her body snapped, bursting pleasure throughout her body with fast, jarringly pleasurable contractions that seemed to grow in magnitude and intensity before finally ebbing, Nick all the while prolonging her orgasm for as long as he could by continuing to work her nether regions with his mouth. At last she came down from the mountain, her mind in a daze as Nick stopped what he was doing, gently wiped his mouth on the back of his paw and looked down to take pride in his work: His mate was totally sedated, her muscles relaxed, appearing to have melted. The glassy expression on her face was everything he'd ever wanted to see. She looked at him, then, and her piercing gaze regarded him as her everything—looking at him as though he were the sun, moon, and stars rolled into one.

Her gaze stirred something primal in him. Something he had felt before, though now with redoubled intensity! If he were hard before, he positively _throbbed_ , now. He instinctively moved over her and as he positioned himself at her entrance only to gently run his length against it. She looked up at him expectantly; a halo of pleasure engulfing her—and that was the moment when he snapped out of his reverie.

 _'We can't do this!'_ he thought. _'What if I hurt her?'_ With a nearly hidden growl of sexual frustration he dismounted and lay on his side next to her. She turned with him and stared at his chest. He relaxed after a moment and stroked her side. _'_ _I really don't need anything else . . .'_ he thought as he moved his head to look at her. Tonight seemed different somehow, though. Having sex with her, or trying to at least, felt like the right move. Their physical contact up to that point had always been enough; but now it seemed as though something had changed in them—in him: He wanted more, and he was certain he had seen the same desire in his mate. But how could they . . . how could they . . . fit? It was this doubt that had stymied both of them for so long, neither willing to speak for fear of what the other might think.

Judy wordlessly looked up at him as a plan began to take shape in her head. She pushed herself up on one arm and sat up. Nick started to follow her up but she gently put a paw on his chest, keeping him in place. "Carrots, what're you . . . ?" he trailed off as she manoeuvred the both of them so that he was beneath her; she, straddling his hips. She ran her opening against his member as she built up the courage, her own doubts coming to the surface, now.

 _'Maybe he just doesn't want to . . . go all the way,'_ she thought hesitantly. She was worried about what _he_ would think, what _they_ would do, if they joined and it didn't work; but the temptation in her was strong. She cursed her cowardice and knew in reality he would probably welcome an attempt at full-on sex—but if their joining didn't work, she thought, her attempt would bring about an awkward halt to their proceedings. She just had to take a chance, no waiting, and perform the act quickly before she had a chance to second guess herself.

She grabbed his length softly as he watched her—his eyes darkening with lust as he felt himself warm in the palm of her paw—and began to stroke it, feeling how slick it was. She saw pearls of pre form at the tip of his cock and heard him begin to pant. He closed his eyes as longing and desire swept through his being. "God, Judy . . . please . . ." he murmured as she stroked him.

The bunny ran her thumb across the tip of his cock, earning a groan from him, and smeared the pre down the length of his erection, slicking it up even more. Playfully, she took one of her soft fingers and ran it down the side of his length, gently, till it met his sheath. She then, very carefully, dipped her finger inside his sheath and gently rubbed along the inside edge. Almost instantly, Nick uttered a loud, guttural shout of pleasure and bucked his hips upward, feeling his knot start to form almost instantly beneath his sheath. Judy smirked to herself and decided to keep that trick in mind for later.

Nick looked up at her in wonder but soon closed his eyes again as her touches resumed. He was close and getting closer every second. His eyes squeezed tightly as he began to grunt and gasp in pleasure. He had resigned himself already to simply coming in her paw which at this point was totally fine with him and he let himself go. Judy, on the other paw, longing to do what she had wanted to do for some time now was at war with her timidity. What would Nick think? What would he do? What would he say? Would he think less of her? At last her need overrode her rationality and, as though wanting to rip off a band-aid, in a matter of seconds, positioned herself over the fox's erection, put him at her waiting entrance, and sank down on him. Without missing a beat, she began rocking down on his member at the same pace with which she had been stroking him.

Nick's eyes flashed open and met hers in surprise, instinctively aware of what had just happened—sensing that they had just crossed _the_ line together. He came nearly instantly a few strokes into the act, the strong pulses in his manhood shocking him. He closed his eyes as he lost his virginity to her again and again until the initial waves ebbed away. Judy had felt the sudden wetness and stopped her movements as the throbbing in his member subsided. She looked down at him as he groaned and closed his eyes, a blush tinting the inside of his ears. When it was over Nick sighed, opened his eyes, looked his mate right in the face and, in a haze of pleasure, roughly asked, "I-I'm i-in . . . aren't I . . . ?" He gulped and looked down at their joining as he realised the stupidity of his question.

Judy gave a slight nod as he looked back up at her. She blushed brightly enough that it could be glimpsed beneath her fur. Turning his eyes to the ceiling, his own blush deepening, he quietly said, "I . . . I came already, just so you know," his embarrassment palpable. Nick was still hard as a rock but at that moment all he could think of was what had passed for sexual advice in his teens: _'Girls will pass on guys that come too fast.'_

"I-I know" she replied, timidly. "But it's fine! You were as fast as _any_ rabbit." She felt and instinctively knew that she'd said the exact wrong thing at the exact wrong time. She _knew_ Nick would take it the wrong way—not that there were many complementary ways to take such a comment—and flinched when she saw Nick's eyes widen in embarrassment. "Which!" she hastily added as she tried to cover her mistake, "is good because _I'm_ a rabbit! I mean, what I'm trying to say is that rabbits are fast and you weren't _that_ much faster than a rabbit. Not faster than a rabbit at all, really, when you average everything out!" She placed a comforting paw on his chest and continued in what she hoped was a comforting tone. "The point is that you have nothing to be ashamed of because if I'd had a rabbit lover he would've finished in three seconds, too!"

Nick covered his face with his paws and groaned as a sense of inadequacy set in. "Why couldn't you have given me a warning!" he said, blushing in embarrassment.

Judy opened her mouth to answer, but closed it again. Nick peeked through his fingers. "Carrots? What's wrong?" he asked when he felt rather than saw her trepidation.

She was looking away, now, and after a moment of silence said, "Because . . . I was scared of what you'd think of me."

The fox uncovered his face and looked up at her, turning what she said over in his mind. When her words finally reached him, he sat up and put his arms around her. "For wanting to have sex with me?" he asked, genuinely bemused, his face reflecting this as he looked down at her quizzically. In an attempt to cover his confusion, he arched an eyebrow in amusement.

She leant in and continued. "I know it's silly but . . . but I really have no idea what I'm doing. And we're two different species and I didn't know if _you_ wanted to have sex with _me_. And . . ."

"Wait, you didn't know if I would like or want to have sex with you, so you just did it?" he asked, a playful smile on his face.

"I had to take a chance . . ." she trailed off, suddenly feeling humiliated, his words clearly missing their mark. "Nick, I'm sorry, we can just pretend it never happened!" she said hurriedly as she made to get off of him. His paw suddenly reached up and stopped her.

"Well . . ." began Nick, cocking his head thoughtfully, "there's no need for anything _drastic_ . . ."

Judy looked at him apprehensively, though admittedly her nervousness was dissipating, and waited for him to continue.

"It's possible that I was having . . . similar doubts," he confided. "Maybe we were both shy. I know I just didn't wanna look stupid—which, given all we've been through doesn't seem like something that should've mattered. Maybe I was too scared to tell you what I was feeling and . . . maybe I was worried that I'd hurt you. Like, physically." He arched an eyebrow and smirked. "Who knew you were loose enough?"

"Who knew you were small enough?" she returned, her brow arching as her playful side seemed to return.

Nick scowled. "Touché," he said flatly. "Or," he began, a devious smile forming "maybe I'm just that good . . ." he growled playfully.

Judy leaned in and gave him a long kiss before pulling back. "Maybe," she said, but there was a twinkle in her eyes that told her lover that she was definitely teasing him now.

Nick leant in and kissed her again. "Next time," began Nick as he pulled away, "let's just mention these things."

"Oh, you mean have an adult relationship rather than bottling up everything till the last minute and you find yourself having surprise sex?"

"Well, the surprise sex part is fine; it's the first clause I'm more worried abou-"

"Oh, thank God, because I've recently been reading the Camel Sutra and I-"

"Stop!" said Nick flatly. "Can we at least finish lesson one before moving on to lessons that'll break my back?"

Judy reached her paws out and ran her fingers through the fur on his chest and clenched her walls around his still-hard member at which Nick closed his eyes. "Do you think you could go on?" she asked with a mixture of sexiness and hesitancy. She was somewhat surprised that he was still hard, though she was definitely still in the mood. The fox opened his eyes again and placed his paws on his lover's hips and nodded. Smiling shyly, the rabbit slowly resumed riding him, biting her lower lip in pleasure as she did so, gasping every now and again. Moans of pleasure were drawn from the both of them at the repeated sensation of his filling her passage completely. As she moved up and down on him, her body relaxed to the point where she was able to take all of him. Nick fell back onto the couch as his cock rubbed against the sponge-like flesh in the depths of her womanhood, pleasuring him in a way he had never dreamt he would ever feel as her body worked to draw his seed from him. He was amazed that his cock seemed ready to come again so soon.

 _'It's because of her,'_ he thought in admiration.

Nick tilted his head and raised himself up on his elbows so that he could look down at the two of them and see the full joining of their bodies. At this, the longing and gnawing in his core seemed to increase. He wanted more than this! He was going to tie her, he decided. Or at least try to. The pleasure was washing out his reason and any protest suggesting that tying her might be a bad idea was swept away in wave after wave of want and desire. He growled as instinct, hunger, lust, and pleasure took over, becoming the only things that drove him. When he opened his eyes again to see Judy, her naked body arched— _Beautiful!—_ , her head thrown back in pleasure as her cries of pleasure mounted— _Gorgeous!—_ , the last of his will snapped. Without warning, Judy suddenly felt Nick's arms wrap around her and she let out a cry of surprise as in one fluid movement she suddenly found herself beneath the fox but started crying out in pleasure again as her lover began to pound himself into her with a speed born of sexual abandon. He held himself aloft, and she looked up to see him growling like a lion as he sought pleasure and completion within her. It was the most handsome way she'd ever seen him.

She wrapped her legs around his waist, her arms around his neck and buried her paws in the fur there, merely wishing to see and feel her lover as he lost his composure. Instinctively, she drove her hips upward just as quickly, meeting each of his quick thrusts, moaning with pleasure as she felt herself reaching her peak a second time. Her movements as she matched his rhythm increased their pleasure monumentally. Nick grit his teeth as he groaned. "Oh, fuck! Judy! God! Yes!" he bit out, the last word a growl as he buried his muzzle in her neck, the claws on his feet gripping the sofa cushions for purchase as his body and mind insisted he drive himself into her as deeply he could. Desiring to be as close to her as possible, he clutched her to himself as though to never let go. His mind, heart, and core went blank, time seeming to slow down for him, as he reached his moment of truth, feeling his knot start swell as much as it could. It happened quickly, but to his fancied mind it was slow and deliberate: He felt the bulb slip from his sheath; felt it push against Judy's loosened womanhood. His ears pinned back, his mouth forming a perfect O, as it slipped past her folds and touched her core. It slipped in and out once . . . twice . . . thrice . . . . The fourth time it stuck. In the instant he felt his knot tie within her, the wave of pleasure that had been building within him burst free.

His cock spammed and pulsed deep within her folds as he let out a shout of triumph and pleasure. "Judy!" he shouted loudly as he came. "Judy . . . !" His climax radiated throughout his body, feeling a sense of completeness in his chest. He buried his face in her neck as the intense pleasure swept through him, his back feet gripping the couch as he tried to push himself in as far as he could as he came and came. And _came._ He growled and gasped as he felt his cock spasm, feeling a primal satisfaction as his essence spilled into her. It was unbelievable to him: Finally, he had her! Her love, her devotion, her body—and he had _given_ himself to her! It was like a dream, and he held her tightly as his seed filled her. His soul touched hers and he felt hers reciprocate when her body seized in pleasure as well.

She threw her head back and shouted his name as the only thing that filled her senses was Nick: The way he smelled, the way he bit out her name as his orgasm overtook him like wave hitting him from behind, the way his fur felt—slightly dampened from perspiration—under her fingers, the way he filled her so completely and perfectly, the way the hot wetness spilling into her from him thrilled her: promising her something she couldn't name; the way his knot bound her to him—it was transcendent of the physical! She clutched him tightly, moaning and gasping into his shoulder.

At last, the initial waves passed but the pleasure remained vaguely in the back of his head as his cock continued to throb, his come continuing to fill her. He breathed heavily into her neck as he returned to himself. Suddenly the gravity of the situation seemed to settle on him as he pulled slightly away and looked down at her, his faced furrowed in worry which he found unwarranted when he looked into her face and saw how lazily her eyes regarded him. "Nick . . ." she whispered frailly as she reached a paw up to his cheek, "I . . . I love you." Words could not express the sheer ecstasy she'd experienced at his paws. She wanted to be with him like this forever.

Nick leaned down and kissed her tenderly at her words. "I love you too, Carrots," he murmured roughly. "If I'd known you were gonna make us mates tonight I'd've tried to do something special to . . ."

She brought up a finger to silence him. "You already have. This was perfect."

"So," began Nick, anxiously as his mind began to turn to other aspects of what they'd just done, "How was I?"

"Ten out of ten, I'd say. Though, I really have nothing to compare it to."

Nick raised an eyebrow in disbelief. "Thought you said bunnies were good at multiplying."

"We are. So good at it, in fact, that if I had had prior experience I'd've been a mother a few times over by now."

Nick nodded and smiled down at her.

"And why're you so insecure, anyway. Those were some mighty fine skills you have. Have you not had any . . . uh . . . practice?"

Nick gently rolled them to their sides, facing each other, as he shook his head no. "I . . . well, until recently, that is," he began as he smirked at Judy, "I used to think that I'd always be alone. So, no; I never . . . had the chance or the opportunity for anything like this with the life I was living. I was alone and miserable for a long time. Being with you . . . it's been like a dream." He closed his eyes gently as another gentle wave of pleasure overtook him and she reached up and petted the top of his head.

Nick used his feet to pull the rumpled cover up so that he could reach it with his paw and then pulled it over them as Judy spoke. "You have the chance to make your dreams come true now, though."

Nick looked at her thankfully and murmured "I know. Thanks to you, I'm close to getting everything I ever wanted."

"What's left?" she sighed as she snuggled into the blanket.

As Nick regarded her she thought she could see a hint of vulnerability in his eyes. "Kids," he said at last.

That brought another thought to Judy's mind. "You remember when we told my parents that we were together?" She winced at her change in topic and promised herself to bring up the subject of kids again, but she _had_ to get this out.

"Yeah, that _was_ a cock-up, wasn't it?" he said, sighing.

"They were okay with you saving my life and being my partner, but they were worried about us as a couple. I can see why. That knot of yours, for one thing, would be hard to take for something much smaller than me. Not that my parents would know about that aspect of your . . . anatomy."

Nick nodded. "I know. They might have a point there . . . Well, _might've_. You seem to've taken it just fine," he finished with a smile.

Judy smirked and kissed him under his jaw. "I just wish you'd had the decency to warn me about it the first time I pawed you off."

Nick grimaced at the memory. "I really can't say sorry enough about that. Boy, you really were worried, though."

Judy nodded. "Yeah, that was something I'll never forget. Like, how can something be so hot yet freak me out at the same time."

Nick raised his eyebrows and looked down at her.

Judy waved a paw in front of her face to clear her mind "But anyway, yes, as I was going to say: my parents, blah-blah-blah, the point is that everybody . . . most animals, anyway, have prejudices, Nick, and everybody's going to have an idea about us. In spite of everything, though, there's one thing I _do_ know: I love you; and, well, this is what couples do when they love each other. By the way, were you _really_ okay when I . . ."

"Surprised me with sex? If anybody were gonna pull something like that on our first time and have it work out it would have been you."

"Why?"

"I didn't wanna hurt you and was too unsure to make the first move. And I didn't know where you were in our relationship. I didn't know if you'd even wanna try to be with a fox—be with me—like this."

"Are you still scared you'd hurt me?"

"Maybe a little. This is just round one and there are so many ways this could go wrong and I mean more than just physically."

"We were okay tonight, though."

"But . . ."

"Shh!" she interrupted. "Don't think about it. This is just you and me. We'll figure it out. And if we try something and it turns out it doesn't work then it doesn't work." When Nick continued to look doubtful, Judy caressed his cheek with the back of her paw and said, "Look, there's nothing to worry about or be embarrassed. It's just us . . . it's just you and me. And as long as it's just the two of us under the covers, that's all that matters. I'll _always_ love you Nick." She giggled slightly and said, "I can't wait till tomorrow when we can try this again."

At the thought, Nick felt a longing in the vicinity of his heart. "T-tomorrow, too?" he asked.

"As often as we want," she returned, sleepily. "Oh!" she shouted, and she artfully twisted her body round to snatch her phone off the coffee table. She turned on the camera, flipped the camera screen to take a selfie, and focused it on their faces. Though it didn't show anything private, it was implicit from the bareness of their shoulders that they were naked. She looked at him and smiled. "To tomorrow," she said before leaning in for a kiss. She took the picture then and then took another of the two of them looking at the camera. She turned it off, but kept it clutched tightly in her left paw.

 _'To tomorrow . . . as often as we want . . .'_ The words resonated through Nick's mind. It were almost as though the thought hadn't occurred to him: Certainly the idea had been in the back of his mind; but now, giving it full attention and considering it, he realised that having her to himself—having her like this, simply being with her under the covers—was comforting in a way he couldn't express in words. He was hers, now. They had shared their bodies intimately in a way they never had before and they could enjoy each other, indulging in their mutual pleasures, as often as they pleased. He promised himself right then that as often as she wished he would worship her with his body and give himself to her as fully and completely as she wanted.

As these thoughts passed through Nick's mind he felt and heard his mate's breathing slow before evening out. He clapped his paws twice, turning off the lights in the living room and sighed contentedly, closing his eyes. Things could have worked out so, so differently. He might've ended up alone—and indeed he had been for so long. Judy on the other paw had grown up in a large family. She'd never known loneliness in the same way that he had, though certainly she had faced her own struggles. Her desire to be a police officer must have made her feel lonely, particularly when she stood out by defying her family's wishes. Being with him here like this, she was defying them again. While they'd come around to her choice in career eventually, her growing up must have been difficult. Meanwhile, Nick had been used to loneliness for some time. The world had treated him cruelly. Being on his own essentially since he was twelve had taught him how mean animals could be. But now he had someone: Someone who loved him, someone who was his friend, someone who got him out of himself. If he lost it all at this point he didn't think he'd be able to take it.

The thought resonated in his mind: Throughout his life whenever things seemed to be going well there was _always_ a hammer. Something _always_ ended up going wrong. He was terrified, in truth. Should he hope that things go well for him this time? The warmth of the bunny in his arms, the intimacy of having tied her, reminded him that, at least for now, life was fine—life was good. He would always treasure this moment. He could have this, he decided; he could allow himself this. As his mind calmed and his breathing evened out he closed his eyes. He smiled and snuggled into her, gently and peacefully falling asleep.


	2. Grey Morning

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> A sober morning awakens a different world. Judy begins her foray into a world that is now unfamiliar to her. Her logical and practical approach to the danger in which she finds herself are her saving graces when a single faux pas might giver her away. With little time to wonder why she might be there, she focuses her attentions on trying to learn the rules of the land in which she's found herself.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I would like to start out by saying that I'm thankful for all the reviews that I've received over the past week. I can only hope that my writing continues to be good in the future.
> 
> As I stated before, I welcome any and all criticism pertaining to the story. If I miss a bit of grammar here or there let me know so I can fix it. If there's something that strikes you a mistake or an error let me know so that I can fix that, too; and yes, I do fix mistakes that are pointed out to me. Speaking from personal experience, nothing can take me out of a story more than a misspelt word or a grammatical mistake—especially if they're too common. Any other comments, questions, or concerns? Feel free to PM me.
> 
> Disclaimer: This is a work of fanfiction and has no claim whatsoever on the characters of Nick Wilde and Judy Hopps who are the sole property of The Walt Disney Company. In no way have I sought money, monetary value, nor profit of any kind for the writing of this story.
> 
> One More Thing: I use an obscure word in this chapter but I had to use it to get the setting right so I've decided to define it here for you—Corniche: A road on the side of a cliff or mountain, with the ground rising on one side and falling away on the other

* * *

 

As Judy slept in Nick's arms, her dreams got stranger and stranger; hearing voices and odd sounds that weren't quite nightmares but were nevertheless disturbing. Her body twitched as the jumble of sounds and images in her mind gently started to take form, the warmth she had felt as she slept giving way to a jarring coldness that didn't quite wake her. There were a series of loud cracks that shook the air: as loud as claps of thunder when it's too close.

Judy's eyes flickered.

'The sound combined with the loudly growing admixture in her mind, the kaleidoscope of sounds and voices getting louder and louder until she-

_Beeeeeeeeeep!_

Judy's eyes flashed open at the sound of a loud car horn sounding right next to her. Instinctively she pinned her ears back, opened her mouth, and let out a long, terrified scream which only intensified when she realised that she was in a car driving down the middle of a busy road at an odd hour of the early pre-dawn morning! Adrenaline instantly flooded her system as terror seized her. She was just coming to an intersection where the light had turned red! Fight or flight instincts taking hold, she jammed her foot on the brake as hard as she could, cringing as she did so, and stopped the car—tires squealing loudly—just as it reached the intersection.

Even sitting still at the red light she didn't stop screaming until she had exhausted the air in her lungs. She began hyperventilating, her body not sure whether it wanted to continue screaming or crawl into a corner. Her head darted around quickly to take all of her surroundings. _'How the hell did I get here? Where the hell is this? What . . . Just what . . . ?'_ she thought as her mind seemed to stall, a jumble of thoughts and sensations going through her mind as her brain worked to put together the world around her—the colours, the sounds, _the fact that she was in a car_.

_Beeeeeeeeeep!_

She jumped a second time as another horn sounded behind her. She looked up and saw the light was green, the car behind her honking to alert her. She started forward and searched the sidewalks for a place to park. She saw a place up ahead of her along the right side of the road in front of a café.

She managed to station the car safely and, having done so, killed the ignition and simply sat staring straight ahead, hyperventilating loudly, as her heart and body worked to calm themselves. Her mind was blank, in a nearly meditative state, and quite possibly broken forever. She didn't know for how long she sat—whether ten minutes or half an hour—but it was after what felt like some time before her mind started reeling again. _'Where am I? Whose car is this? What the hell am I doing driving down a busy road? Where's Nick?!'_

At the last thought, as much as she wanted to have a partner by her side, Judy forced her mind to focus. _'Okay. First things first: Whose car is this?'_ She reached over and opened the glove compartment to search for any information she could. She pulled out the registration and saw that the car was registered on behalf of the ZPD. _'Okay, so I'm in a police car . . . ?'_ She rolled down the driver's side window and looked down at the outside of the car and found the ZPD logo printed across the side. The registration papers in hand, she got out of the car and walked around to the back and took a look at the license plate. _'Everything matches. 'Okay, step two: Where am I?'_ She searched around but found no familiar landmarks which sent another alarm ringing through her mind which she quickly squelched: _'Just calm down! You're not in any danger—All that's happened is you're on a street that you don't recognise. Which is fine. No one is harming you, you've got both feet safely on the ground, and you're off the road.'_ Convincing herself that the immediate danger was over was a difficult trick; especially with the adrenaline still in her system. Evolutionarily speaking, her body was meant to stay hopped up on fear for longer: Even now, she was still hyperventilating. She was antsy, her senses were heightened, and her nose twitched with nervousness. _'Okay, step three: I need to figure out where I am.'_ After replacing the registration in the glove, she got out, locked the car door, and searched for someone to speak to.

She saw a young-looking stag walking down the sidewalk and caught up to him.

"Excuse me, sir?" she said hesitantly.

The stag turned to face her. "Yes?" he said, his face scowling the instant he saw her. Judy looked down at herself to find she was in uniform. Putting away, momentarily, the question that formed in her mind as to how she even got into uniform, she looked back to the stag.

"Uh . . . you're not in trouble or anything! Um . . . I . . . uh . . . could you just tell me where I am? I'm a little disoriented."

The stag regarded her oddly.

"Uh . . ." she stammered again, "I was just nearly in a bad car accident and my mind's a little vague . . ."

The stag sighed and said, "You're in Animalia."

"Animalia . . . ?"

"The Animalia district."

"Um . . . in which city."

"Okay, look, bunny, I don't have time for games. I've gotta get to work."

"No, no! Wait! Please wait! Just tell me the name of the city!" she cried as he walked away.

"Zootopia, dumbass!" he shouted over his shoulder.

While she internally winced at the insult she said nothing in reply as her mind instead started to focus on a whole new slew of questions. _'Animalia district . . . ?'_ She walked down the sidewalk to the other end of the block, intending to get a look at the street sign on the corner. _'At least knowing which street I'm on could help.'_ She found, however, when she got to the end of the street that things were even more bemusing. "'Happy Town Boulevard'?" she read aloud. _'This doesn't make sense! How are things getting even_ more _confusing the more I learn?! Okay, maybe I just need to ask someone else or . . . .'_ She stopped her train of thought as she happened to look down the street. Very few animals were out at the time. Some shopkeepers were barely opening up their shops. She reached for her phone. It wasn't in her pocket. ' _Is it in the car?'_

With a huff of annoyance, she went back to the patrol car. She unlocked the car and found her phone on the floor on the driver's side. Thinking back to how it might've gotten there, she realised that she'd had the phone in her left paw as she'd been driving. It had fallen on the floor when she let go of the steering wheel after she'd parked and, as her mind was on more pressing matters at the moment, hadn't paid it much attention. She checked the time.

 _'"Five forty-seven AM."'_ She hummed to herself while considering what to do next. _'I'm in an unfamiliar city—at least a city that I know but don't recognise. So, either I'm dreaming, which I doubt, or I was crazy when I imagined everything that happened in my life till this point—or maybe I'm crazy now! Either way, if I am crazy I can't let anyone know. My best bet is to figure out what I can without letting anyone think that I_ am _crazy.'_ She put her head in her paw. _'What would Nick do?'_ she wondered. _'He'd be smooth. He'd know how to cover for anything he didn't know. He'd know to ask questions whose answers reveal more information than those being questioned were aware of. Get animals to talk! That's what he'd do—he questions suspects so that they think he's asking one thing but is really trying to figure out something else! Okay, you can do this Judy. You aren't crazy. You_ aren't _crazy! You can do this. C'mon, Judy, survive!'_

Though talking herself up, she was nevertheless filled with a sense of fear, her level of anxiety going up higher and higher as the daunting task presented itself before her. Shakily, she managed to stand from the crouched position she'd been in since looking for her phone. She looked up and down the street and, after locking the car back up, decided to go back up to the one road with which she was familiar: Happy Town Boulevard. She decided that the best course of action was to walk around and get her bearings. She had no idea what she was doing, and that sense of forlornness she felt made her steps going forward more hesitant. She had readily accepted that things were different: How could she deny the evidence of her own eyes? She was an officer, trained in examining and investigating crime. In the year and a half she'd lived on the peninsula she'd learned all the ins and outs of the city thanks in no small part to Nick who, as a hustler on the streets, knew all the places criminals were likely to go. Hardly any region of the city was unknown to the two of them. This city, Judy concluded, was _not_ Zootopia. Not any Zootopia she recognised. Oh, sure, it seemed to have the same general vibe of any urban jungle, and the integration of nature and building structure appeared essentially the same; but the problem was that despite the familiarity with the architecture and style, the city itself (at least from where she was standing) was totally _un_ familiar.

She reached the end of the street and decided to go around the block since she needed to familiarise herself with the city, anyway. Another benefit was that taking walks had always helped her to clear her head—and she needed that now more than ever. As she saw more and more animals out while many of the more-nocturnal animals seemed to be going home, another oddity struck her—Every once in a while she'd come across an animal wearing a collar. It was some time before she observed that everyone wearing a collar was a predator. She stopped walking as an uncomfortable feeling began to settle in her stomach. She knew it wasn't the most prudent thing to do, but she had to ask someone what the hell was going on, curiosity getting the better of her. She looked around for someone wearing a collar: Someone alone so as not to risk being overheard. She cast about and was suddenly stricken with a sense of relief and familiarity: Her gaze had landed on a familiar looking otter walking up ahead of her. _' _Mrs. Otterton!'__ she thought gratefully, thanking her lucky stars as a sense of stability filled her. She ran as fast as she could to catch up with the lutrine. Mrs. Otterton was nearly to a crosswalk and seemed to be making to cross the street.

"Hey!" shouted Judy.

The otter seemed to not hear her, but several animals turned in her direction.

"Hey!" she shouted, more loudly still.

No response.

Fortunately she managed to catch up before the light had changed. "Mrs. Otterton!" said Judy brightly and slightly out of breath.

Mrs. Otterton turned to look at here. Her eyes widened in surprise before narrowing in anger and . . . _fury?_

Mrs. Otterton seemed to take a moment to regain her composure before she spoke. "Officer Hopps. What can I do for you today?" she asked distantly. She affected a tone of voice that said, "I'm above my anger."

"I have a question for you . . ." began Judy hesitantly, "wh-why are you wearing that collar."

If looks could kill, Judy was certain she'd be buried under six feet of concrete. Mrs. Otterton regarded her with pure malice. An uncomfortable silence had settled between them and Judy was feeling more and more uncomfortable by the minute. "Uh . . . never mind!" said Judy quickly and she turned to walk away in embarrassment.

"You know you can't just treat us that way!" came a shout behind her.

Judy turned back to face Mrs. Otterton. "What?"

"You think you can just lord your position of the rest of us?!"

"I . . . I don't . . ."

"How dare you! Why do you have to come after me? After what you did to m—!" Suddenly, Mrs. Otterton let out a cry of surprise as the collar around her neck buzzed.

 _"Did . . . did that collar just_ shock _her?!"_ Judy took a step forward but Otterton quickly took a step back.

"Don't you come _near_ me!" she cried, seemingly on the verge of tears.

"I . . . I . . ."

"I don't know why you think it's fun to torture us but it doesn't matter! Just leave my family alone!"

The light had changed. The otter turned in a huff of indignity, tears forming in the corner of her eyes, and crossed the street stiffly at a brisk pace.

After a moment where she merely stood at the crosswalk, Judy looked around and found some other animals looking at her, having stopped to gawk at the commotion—a badger, a racoon, and a tiger, she noted; _all_ wearing collars. They all turned away the instant she looked at them and went back to walking to their respective destinations. _'Okay,'_ thought Judy to herself, _' _don't ask about collars.'__ She very self-consciously continued her walk around the area.

She noticed as she went along, just taking her time, that she seemed to be in a metropolitan area just outside of a municipal district. _'I must be near Downtown,'_ she thought. She reasoned that the multitude of cafés and restaurants didn't make sense so clustered together unless there would be a lot of animals eating here in large numbers at once. She passed several restaurants tailored toward smaller creatures; some toward larger ones, elephants and giraffes and the like. She noted, however, as she walked along that many of the restaurants served food that was almost exclusively vegetarian save for those few serving poultry or fish; or insects, too, she also saw—though these were more common.

Many animals walked along, both predator and prey, peacefully. _'As I would expect,'_ thought Judy. However, the fact that all the predators were wearing collars was unnerving her more and more. She noticed, for example, that a lion in a business suit and tie walking past her seemed to have worn away the fur beneath his collar; as if it were worn continually. Judy flinched slightly but over time found herself becoming more and more accommodated to what she saw. Nobody really seemed to mind the collars. If predators really felt that badly about it there'd be rioting in the streets. _'No there wouldn't,'_ she rebuked herself, _'because if they could have fought against it, they would have.'_ She thought this just as she was coming up to the next crosswalk. She saw a crowd of animals there waiting for the walking green. Among the crowd, she could make out a wolf and, standing in front of him, a pig and a bull among others.

The light changed and they all started to cross. Judy heard the loud revving of an engine to her left and watched as a small car drove by quickly. She was about to shout a warning but before she could, the car clipped the corner and ran over the wolf's foot and got stuck on it!

"Hey!" the wolf shouted angrily. Judy could see and hear the shock the collar delivered the wolf.

Judy could hear the creatures in the car _laughing_.

"Hey!" shouted Judy, suddenly remembering that she was in uniform and could not, therefore, afford to stand there gawking as she had been for a few initial seconds. This was absolutely unbelievable!

At the sound of her voice, the wolf turned to see her. He flattened his ears, let out a tiny whine, and licked his lips. Judy walked over to where they were, knelt down, and said to the two creatures, whom she could now see were hamsters, and said, "License and registration please."

There were two of them in the car and both of them only stared at her. "License and registration, please," she said again, now with a bit more bite.

"For what?!" shouted the hamster in the passenger seat.

"Let's get one thing straight:" began Judy, seriously annoyed at the tone he took, "There's only room for one attitude in this conversation and that's mine. So I'm asking you for the last time, 'License and registration, please.' Also, I'm going to ask you nicely to drive off this wolf's foot." It was illegal in Zootopia, for obvious reasons, to pick up a smaller animal—even in a car—unless it were a baby; as indeed, no sentient creature would enjoy being manhandled.

Properly reigned in, the hamsters drove off the wolf's foot and killed the engine.

She took a moment and started to write down the license plate number on the ticket pad she had pulled from her back pocket.

"Uh . . ." said the wolf. Judy looked up at him and saw his eyes darting around nervously and perhaps a bit fearfully. "Can I go?" he asked apprehensively.

"They ran over your foot; are you sure you don't wanna file a complaint?" she asked sensitively.

"No, no!" he said quickly, and he waved his arms in front of him. He was _begging_ her! "Please, I don't want to cause any problems-"

"You're not! They just ran over your foot and cut you off—Oh! Watch out for the traffic!" she said as he started to back away from her and into the street.

"It's fine! I gotta get to work anyway!" he said as he turned around. When he saw there were no cars coming he dashed across as quickly as he could.

"Hey!" she shouted after him, "I thought you were going straight!" She wanted to give chase but couldn't since she had to finish the ticket.

"Sorry!" he shouted over his shoulder. That was the last she heard as she saw him dip into an alley.

"Listen, cop-lady, " said the hamster's voice behind her, "why don't you just let this go? You have no evidence and no witness—not that they'd believe thatchomper anyway."

Judy turned to face the driver. "First of all, I don't need direct evidence or a witness to write you up. I'm a police officer and I saw what you with my own eyes!"

"Oi!" came a feminine voice from behind her. She turned to see a female badger walking up to her—the one whom she'd seen looking at her after her argument with Mrs. Otterton. The badger merely shook her head lightly while she approached, as though to say "no" to some unspoken statement. Judy heard the squealing of tires as the hamsters' car behind her peeled out. She turned to shout after them when the badger gently took her arm and turned her to so they could see each other face to face.

"You've gotta be careful around here, Carrots."

Judy's eyes widened at the familiar nickname. "Do you know me?" she asked the badger in genuine surprise; her question, howeve, came out a bit more bitingly than she intended.

The badger released her. "Exactly," was all she said, and crossed the street, heading in the direction that Judy'd intended to go, without another word.

She wanted to follow but got a strong feeling from the badger that she shouldn't. _'Huh. Well,_ that's _not something I'm gonna wonder about for the rest of the day,'_ she thought as she closed her notepad and pocketed it. She turned around, deciding to go back to the car. _'Also I kinda don't wanna follow her,'_ she added to herself.

The sun had come up now and those animals who'd normally be up and about during the daytime were becoming more and more present. In that time, Judy's training had been coming more and more to the forefront—not those skills specifically pertaining to her physical stamina but those having to do in particular with blending in. As a rabbit, she often stood out for her height—or want of it, really. Having observed Nick in the field when he dealt with perps whom he either knew or had heard of during time as a scammer—and really, even those of whom he hadn't heard—she noticed his easy-going manner often had the ability to set animals at ease. He had practised masking his emotions for such a long time that getting animals to trust in him and the false persona he put on from time to time came naturally. He'd have made a great undercover cop if his ascension to police officer hadn't been so public. He, furthermore, had the distinction of being the only fox on the force which made him instantly recognisable; Judy faced the same barrier, being the only bunny. If you were gonna deal drugs with any fox or bunny, you only had to look at the pictures of the only fox and bunny on the squad to know whether they were legit.

Notwithstanding these difficulties, however, the training they had all been given as police officers, and her observations of Nick in particular, had given her a sense of what to do to blend in. She intentionally set before herself two interrelated goals: One—to blend in, and two—to prevent animals from thinking she was crazy. _'Treat this like an undercover investigation,'_ she thought as she continued on along the sidewalk, crossing the street. _'Undercover officers can and do wing it all the time and manage to pass for full members of whatever organisation they're infiltrating.'_ While she was certain as much as any sane animal about her own sense of reality—she was certain, for example, that she was an officer; she was certain she had slept with Nick last night; she was certain of all she had achieved up till this point throughout her career and her life in general—her instincts as a prey creature and training as an officer were both telling her that, practically speaking, none of that mattered anymore: The world seemed to be working according to different rules for some reason and, for good or ill, this was the situation to which she must now adapt to survive.

_'But how?'_

At that thought she stopped in her tracks, puzzling over the situation. There was no way to ask an animal, she reasoned, without "blowing her cover" and appearing crazy. Her altercation with Mrs. Otterton only cemented in her mind the fact that the rules of propriety were different now, and not knowing what could piss someone off meant that playing twenty-questions with some random member of society was a potential minefield that could send alarms ringing in someone's head.

 _'And the last thing I need is to be remanded to Cliffside,'_ she thought as she pursed her lips. _'This is going to be harder than I thought! Let's see . . . even undercover officers usually start off with a briefing. What I need is to find out about the city in general.'_ She started walking again as she looked around at the different shops, continuing her train of thought.

She could hear Nick's imaginary voice in her head reprimanding her harshly, _'"You dumb bunny, use the internet!"'_

She flattened her ears and grimaced. _'Oh yeah . . .'_

She checked the time on her phone and saw that it was almost seven. She'd been walking around the city for nearly an hour. Judy made her way back to the car in about fifteen minutes, got out her phone as she sat down, and pulled up a map of Zootopia. As near as she could tell, things were, at base, the same. The essential regions of the city were still Tundra Town, Sahara Square, Savannah Central, Rainforest District, Meadowlands— _' _Still north of Rainforest__ ,' she thought—, and the Canal District which lay to the north-west. As she carefully looked over the rest of the map, she noted that there was another area that hadn't been a part of the city before: To the west of the Rainforest District, across the river that separated the Zootopian peninsula from the mainland, there appeared to exist a recently amalgamated region—

 _'"Happy Town,"'_ she read to herself. She looked up the road to the intersection. ' _So then that road's gotta lead to Happy Town,'_ she mused. She also saw that the peninsula was known as the Animalia region whereas Happy Town was considered an entirely different district altogether. She managed to look through photos of the city and saw a picture of the city hall with its motto written in bold bronze lettering that shone brightly on an arch above the shimmering public fountain:

PEACE THROUGH UNDERSTANDING

Judy sighed sadly swiped away from the pictures and got back to the map in order to get a better idea of the city, but there was no way she was going to be able to memorise a whole new layout that quickly. Wanting to do more research but unwilling to waste her phone's battery, she decided to go to the ZPD and work at her station. She had a computer there and her own desk. _'Or do I?'_ she wondered. So much was different between the way she thought the world worked and now that she was scarcely sure she could trust her recollection at all. She sighed. _'Guess I'd better go and find out what kind of a life I've been living.'_

She turned on her GPS system and spoke, "Zootopia police department." The menu screen brought up the location of the department and a map. She turned on voice directions and started the car. As she moved along, a sudden thought came to her. _'Am I supposed to work today?'_ She grit her teeth, switched on the scanner, took the mic from the holder, and spoke:

"This is officer Hopps to ZPD central . . . this is gonna sound like a stupid question but am I supposed to be at work?"

A few seconds passed before: "Good morning, Hopps," she heard Clawhauser's nervous voice come on. "No, you're off today. Please, you don't have to come in!"

"I _am_ coming in, actually. And, uh, I guess I need to talk to you. Just hang loose till I get there!" she smiled and put the mic back.

"What?!" came his bemused and scared reply over the system. Taken aback, she wanted to reply but had to forget it as the voice from her phone started giving directions. She wanted to speak to Clawhauser specifically since, when she'd first met him, she'd known him to be so kind and accommodating to her.

When she stopped at the nearest red light she took the opportunity to look around, observing how differently things looked. Judy noticed that since her altercation with Otterton and her experience with the wolf and the hamsters— _"Which drove over his foot!"_ she recalled hotly—that the city had suddenly appeared to her greyer and dingier than it had at first. The early-morning gold had faded and the city now seemed to her drabber than it ever had before in her recollection. As she looked about now, she could see in the windows of certain stores and restaurants signs that read, "No Chompers Allowed" along with others along the side of the road: Where Judy might've expected there to be a "No Parking" sign she saw a multitude of prohibitive messages reading things like "No Growling."

At another red light, she saw a pack of three collared wolves standing on the sidewalk talking. An armadillo and two bisons were walking through and, completely and totally wordlessly, the three wolves shuffled off the sidewalk and into the gutter to let them pass. As continued she saw yet another sign that read, "No Pack Behaviour." She managed to slow enough to read the text beneath the main lettering: "Groups of four or more are forbidden for all chomper animals pursuant to city code . . ." and she passed it by before she could read much more. The restaurants, which were now becoming fewer as she reached the centre of the Downtown area, were all tailored to suit the needs of prey animals.

 _'Well, where the hell are the predators going at night? Do they even live in the city?'_ she wondered. As absurd an idea as that might be, it was one of the few cogent conclusions she could come to. Cities practically throve on their nightlife! How could big businesses afford to put up signs denying chompers— _'Predators,'_ she reminded herself—entry to their establishments and serve foods that only herbivores and some omnivores would be able to enjoy without losing revenue unless the predators simply didn't have their nightlife in the city?

 _'But then where . . . ? Happy Town, maybe?'_ she pondered as she drove.

At last, she arrove at the precinct and parked the car around the side with the other patrol cars. She got out and thought to pat herself down to see what she had in her pockets: Her phone, of course; no wallet, much to her displeasure— _"I've been driving without a licence?!"_ ; a set of keys, of which one seemed to be magnetic; the ticketing paper she had in her back pocket; handcuffs, obviously; and a few odds and ends such as a pen and pencil; and for some reason what appeared to be a remote control with a single red button on it which she pushed a couple of times to find that it lit up. She hummed pensively as she looked down at the keys in her paw, put the other items away, and prayed that she wouldn't have to lock or unlock anything in front of anybody since she really had no idea which key was for what. She replaced her keys and sighed as she walked around the building, up the steps, and into the station. She saw a doe sitting at the front desk. As Judy approached, the deer looked up from her reading and smiled at Judy warmly.

"Good morning, Sergeant!"

 _'Sergeant?'_ she wondered. ' _Okay, file that away for later.'_ She tried to force away the rising panic the title sent through her—there was _no way_ she would be able to pull off the managerial duties of a police sergeant without having been trained at all. Someone was bound to find out that something was wrong with her.

"Good morning!" she replied brightly as the wave of nervousness in her stomach threatened to overpower her. The doe's look told her something was amiss though what, she had no idea. The fact that this deer was at the front desk and not Benjamin was a little disconcerting, anyway.

"You seem happy this morning," began the doe carefully. "What . . . uh . . . what's changed? Good news on the case?"

"The case?" asked Judy?

"Oh, right! Chief says that since you were coming in he was going to send you a private email. Boy, you sure get all the fun ones!"

"Right . . ." continued Judy uncertainly. "Um . . . you don't suppose . . . where's Clawhauser?"

The doe arched her brows in surprise. "Clawhauser? Why would you want to talk to _him_?"

Judy suppressed the urge to reprove the doe's tone and continued as politely as she could manage. "Yes, Clawhauser. I have something I need to ask him."

' _Like where my desk is!'_

"Didn't I just speak to him on the radio?" continued Judy as she stared at the doe curiously.

"Did you?" asked the receptionist, whose name Judy could see was Cevilla on her nametag; "If he was he wasn't supposed to be." She leant in to Judy conspiratorially and whispered, "Maybe we can finally get him off the squad." She winked cutely.

And suddenly it seemed to Judy that the female's face was frigid and icy beneath her warm façade.

"For talking to me on the scanner?"

"Well, someone's gotta teach these chompers a lesson. They know they're not supposed to be on the front desk. Besides, we both know he's just a token figure like the rest of 'em. Not like anybody's ever going to let him out on patrol," she said. "Savages are great to have around, don't get me wrong. I mean, somebody's gotta do the dirty work around here. But he's just not up to it!" she finished haughtily.

"Uh, look, sorry to interrupt," said Judy a bit more angrily than she'd intended, "could you just tell me where Clawhauser is now so that I can talk to him?"

The doe sat back, crossed her arms, and humphed.

"Now there's the sergeant I know," she said with a hint of smile in her eyes. "He's down in records, like always."

Judy nodded her head appreciatively but felt none of the sentiment. She walked to the back of the station and down the stairs to the basement level. She found Clawhauser, as Cevilla had promised, sitting at a desk sorting and filing paperwork along with a slew of other predators—all of them, of course, wearing collars.

 _'Are they keeping them all in the basement?'_ She was positively astonished.

As she walked up to him, she saw his eyes widen and his ears flatten back. She slowed as she reached him and said, "Benjamin, can I have a word with you real quick?"

He approached her almost cautiously, the other predator animals giving each other nervous looks as Clawhauser reached her.

"Y-yes, Sergeant," he asked somewhat nervously.

Judy thought very carefully about what she had to ask Clawhauser. From the time that Judy had discovered that she was either crazy or in another world—or both!—there had been one thing in the back of her mind which had been nearly ever-present, and that had been to find Nick. She had pushed that desire aside in order to deal with the very real fact that she needed to survive and for that she needed clarity of purpose; always, though, she'd hoped that there'd be some indication that Nick existed here. Of course, she realised by now that he might be a changed fox when she found him. But she had to hope, even so.

 _'Oh, Nick!'_ she thought as a pain went through her heart. She wanted to see him so badly! She was feeling lonesome for something familiar and that feeling of loneliness terrified her—it was one thing to be alone, but quite another to be alone in a dangerous place. Sure, she had seen Otterton and now Clawhauser—familiar faces they might be—but they were so different from how she'd remembered them that they were little more than strangers to her. She turned away from the cheetah before she lost her composure at these thoughts and simply said, "I need to, well, to ask you some questions that may seem a little strange. If you would be so kind as to lead the way back to my desk, we can discuss the matter there." She tried to make her tone indifferent and distant.

The Benjamin's face fell—not that Judy could see—but gave no sign apart from that that she'd affected him. He stifled a sigh and went around her to head up the stairs. They went up to the entry level and walked amongst the rows of desks, Judy following behind, before he reached a cubical. Judy looked around and saw there were a few others dotted around the station. Hers was furnished with a desk on which there sat mountain of paperwork to the right and a computer at the left. There was another chair present; and as Judy made to sit down at the desk she motioned for Clawhauser to sit in the chair across from her, swivelling her chair to face him. It was clear from every visual tell she could see in Clawhauser's face that she was probably acting out of character. Or at least making him uneasy. That was her take, anyway.

She put on a smile and said, "Uh, for how long have you been working here?"

"F-for about three years, now," he said, his ears pinned back. "I . . . I'm sorry for using the intercom system."

"That's not what this is about!" she said abruptly. "I just need to know . . . well, you know everybody who works here, right?"

Clawhauser nodded.

"You know in general the animals who come through this station?"

He nodded again, looking puzzled.

Now for the main question: "You . . . wouldn't happen to know anybody by the name of Nick?"

"Nick?" He tipped his head to the side.

"Nick Wilde."

Instantly the features of his face went slack. "No, what makes you think I would know him?"

"Well," began Judy, "you just seem like the type of mammal who knows everybody. If anybody were to know Nick, I'm certain you would," she continued softly. "A red fox is a difficult thing to forget. Especially in this department."

To her surprise, she saw Clawhauser's bottom lip begin to tremble before he clenched his jaw.

 _'He's positively terrified!'_ she thought sadly.

"Um, look," she said abruptly, not wanting to make the poor mammal any more uncomfortable than he was, "you've actually answered everything I needed to know; I just . . . I need to get on with my work now. Sorry for troubling you." She wanted to let him go as quickly as possible. She could tell by his face that there was something very, very wrong. Not only that, she should've kept her big mouth shut and said _nothing_ about Nick. She cussed herself for having made that mistake. Hadn't she said that she wanted to try and figure out more about this world before asking about things directly?

_'Damn it!'_

She reproved herself as she looked at the cheetah before her, the alarm he seemed to be experiencing.

 _'And it had been in reaction to Nick!'_ she exclaimed to herself. Or had that same fear always been there? Maybe Clawhauser had been afraid the whole time and he'd only displayed his unease at Judy's questioning him and it had nothing to do with Nick at all.

The chubby cheetah arose from his seat shakily. "Um . . ." he began in a trembling voice," are you gonna do anything?"

At his words, Judy looked confused. _'Do anything about what?'_ she wondered, but gave him what she hoped was a reassuring smile and shook her head no. He audibly gulped and backed away from her and out of the cubicle, before turning around and shuffling back to the records room. Puzzled by his behaviour, she turned to the computer on her desk and drummed her fingers on the desk. While Clawhauser's reaction bothered her, it was—by this point—merely a drop in a very large bucket containing a multitude of things that troubled her. She tried to focus, figuring that the next logical step would be to look as much as she could into what she could and couldn't do here—what was legal and what wasn't. Judy had a sudden thought and pulled out her phone. She opened the camera app and started looking through her old photos. She saw, clearly, photos of her and Nick together and those taken last night. Seeing them, she let out a sigh of relief and felt a profound sense of surety: As certain of her reality as she'd been, she'd've been lying to herself if she'd said that she'd had no doubts at all.

She put her phone away and logged into her computer, glad to see that whomever she'd been in _this world_ used the same log-in information. ' _This world,'_ she mused to herself. _'_ Another _universe? Am I insane?'_ She paused to herself as the computer logged on, the idea of another universe causing all sorts of thoughts to go through her head. It made her giddy and excited to think that she had somehow gone between worlds. _'But how? And why?'_ she wondered. The realities of the world she found herself in, particularly those which pertained to the treatment of predators, did much to dampen her excitement. She was brought to another thought as she pondered these things: ' _What if Nick was here, too?'_ She couldn't imagine what kind of trouble the Nick from her world would be in if he were here. The treatment would be harsh, which only served to strengthen her resolve to figure out what she could about this world.

Nick clearly existed in this universe in his own right if Clawhauser's reaction were anything to go by. An idea came to her: Clicking on the icon that logged her onto the file database, she searched through the online records for "Nick Wilde." She found him, alright—with an even longer rap-sheet than he'd had when she first met him _and_ for different things. ' _An awful lot of disturbing the peace,'_ she thought. Taking a look through other records, she found mug shots of him in orange prison jumpsuits. He had clearly been scarred on his face in some places, though what they were from she had no idea. He looked positively miserable and Judy's heart clenched at the thought of his suffering. As she continued looking through his records, he found an address for him and wrote it down on a scrap of paper. When she looked up his address on the maps app on her phone, she found he lived somewhere in Happy Town in an apartment. He seemed to have a business address near the same area as his residence; or so she read. It appeared to be on the docks, across the river from the Zootopian peninsula—also in Happy Town.

She would have to actively search for him later, though, she decided. If Nick were even still Nick. Her first order of business was to see what, if anything, she could learn about the Zootopia in which she found herself, now. Judy thanked her lucky stars she remembered her visits to the museum of natural history. From what she could recall as a child, having gone on field trips to learn about Zootopia and the surrounding area, the city's heart had been a watering hole—now a public fountain—that had been in existence for some time. It had been a place where prehistoric animals had gone for refreshment. From ancient times, she seemed to remember, it had been the custom in this region to lay down arms; and though she knew at that time that there was still some hunting of prey animals going on, the area near the watering hole had an implicit ban on it. This spirit of cooperation spread throughout the mammalian world—from regions similar to prehistoric Zootopia—and, by the time recorded history began (some eight-thousand years ago or so), animal society had been engaged in an era of peace and cooperation for some time. For the most part, anyway.

The city of Zootopia had changed paws many times over the course of history and it had only been within the last century that the city's constitution and been reformed so that neither prey nor predator should implicitly be leader of the city. Proof of the success of the founding mammals' dream rested in the fact that the city—or at least, the city that Judy remembered—had elected a predator mayor even though prey animals made up the vast majority of the citizenry.

It had been this ideal that had materialised in her mind's eye the desire to go out and achieve that dream for herself. She had seen that goal before her with such clarity; and while her illusions had had to die in order to truly address the injustices she saw once she actually got there, she had, notwithstanding, kept her vision of the city alive: hoping that one day such an ideal could be realised. The city, though, was probably as close to perfect as it could ever be given different personalities. And of course, the occasional animal willing to take over the city for their own gain as acting-mayor Bellwether had. Indeed, what Judy read concerning these things attested to as much as that, though with some noticeable and disturbing differences.

She went to ewetube to see if there were anything there that could quickly explain the city to her and its history. She often found that if she needed to digest such information quickly that often there would be something on the topic there. She discovered through a short ten-minute film about the history of the city, for example, that Zootopia's founding was more contentious than she remembered. _Much_ more contentious. In the documentary, she saw that the delineations between different regions of the city had initially been predicated on whether an animal were considered prey or predator rather than strictly based on animals' climatic and environmental necessities. She noted, somewhat uncomfortably, that the predators were referred to as chompers. She'd known that already, however, from the signs she'd seen around the city to say nothing of the hamsters' earlier usage of the word, but it was slightly different to have it confirmed in such a straightforward way. She swallowed her unease as she sat through the rest of the ten minutes.

Once finished, she switched to another video that caught her eye. The video's thumbnail was of a child wearing a collar. He was a young wolf cub, around seven or eight years old. The title of the video read "Lou's first field trip." She clicked it and watched the shaky hand-held footage.

A class of children was being led through the museum by a boar who was clearly their teacher. Judy smiled at how darling they all looked. Her smile faltered, however, when she noticed some of the children—somewhere near half the class—were wearing collars. Had she become desensitised to the collars already? Looking around in the video, she took note that many of the adults in the museum were wearing the collars as well. There was no doubt at all, now, whether there were any exceptions: shock collars were ubiquitous _if_ you were a predator.

 _'A chomper,'_ she reminded herself as she shook her head in distaste.

Judy sighed and resumed watching, aware now that the teacher was talking to the class.

". . . was many years ago. So," continued the boar, "why do you think that chompers and prey weren't friends?"

"Because we would fight a lot?" asked a young wolf cub.

"Alright, that's a good guess—you're close. Any other ideas?" asked the teacher.

When the class remained silent the boar continued.

"Lou was close when he said it was because we fought a lot. The precise answer is because chompers would _eat_ us."

The boar pushed a button on a display table behind him which played a short animation of a lioness attacking and killing a wildebeest calf. Judy's mouth dropped.

"Ewww!" exclaimed the class in unison.

 _'This can't be real.'_ She couldn't help gaping.

"So, how can we tell from a distance whether somebody's a chomper?" continued the teacher.

"The collars?" came the voice of a young otter.

The teacher nodded. "That's one way to tell! But what if you chompers weren't wearing your collars?" The lutrine girl looked away, unsure. The teacher turned to the prey animals. "I'll give you guys a hint. Think of the word chomper . . ."

"More like _chump_ ers" giggled one boy from the prey group as the rest sniggered.

". . . what does the word chomp have to do with?" finished the teacher.

"Biting?" asked a young rabbit.

"Exactly. So chompers are called chompers because of their sharp teeth. We prey have flat teeth. But they needed their sharp teeth so that they could hunt us. But now we have something that keeps them from killing us. Does anyone know what that is?"

Judy was fuming now, and she noticed that the teacher had his back turned to the preda—to the _chompers—_ and was addressing the prey exclusively.

"Is it the collars?" asked the same bunny again.

"Exactly. So whenever chompers do something bad, they get a little shock—just a tiny one—that reminds them to be good. So we made it be in this city that chompers wear collars so that we can all live together in peace and harmony." The teacher said this last as he turned so as to face all the students. "Isn't that great?"

Judy sat there like a stone. Her surprise redoubled when, to a child, the all smiled and marvelled about how cool it was when a display behind the teacher lit up to feature a panther wearing a business suit standing proudly, his chest puffed out, the shock collar round his neck clearly visible.

 _'How the hell are these kids buying into this?'_ she wondered before chiding herself: _'They're just kids, of course.'_

Clicking away from the video and searching elsewhere, she found out through various informative sites that Happy Town was indeed the residence of nearly all of the predators in Zootopia. Judy was positively astounded when she read about it. It was little more than a slum: No climate walls, no integrated natural infrastructure. The city was essentially a converted industrial zone. It had docks across from the water market in the canal district which were used originally to import and export goods. However, it seemed that much of Happy Town's wealth had gone straight to Zootopia. It's amalgamation into larger Zootopia seemed to have been the work of certain legislators seeking some way to gentrify the city. To her surprise, part of the deal pushed forward by many members of the think tanks and development committees included the need for passports. Each and every member of Happy Town needed a valid passport to travel into and around the city of Zootopia.

 _'That's ridiculous!'_ she thought hotly. She clenched a fist. It was unbelievable!

Pictures of Happy Town's coast showed it to be lined with abandoned factories and fish canneries. She read further and eventually concluded to her satisfaction that Happy Town's amalgamation had been part of a tricky manoeuvre to control the predator animals living there. It seemed as though the city had undergone a rapid change. Chompers in Zootopia, she read, had always been in some way excluded from participating in the urban life of the city. About seventy years ago, Happy Town seemed to have been a bustling and thriving community and doing about as much trade and bringing in as much money as Zootopia. Around the time that Zootopia's constitution was reformed, the city's population seemed split a tad more evenly—though prey still held a majority. In the reconstituted city, provisions were made to protect those animals who seemed to have a genuine fear of predators. Fear mongering eventually brought over enough mammals to the opposition side that they were able to pass laws that discriminated against predators to the point that predators were given their own sections of the city in which they had to stay. On the other paw, she found that prey animals were able to walk about the city freely.

Selective lending by banks that were largely controlled by prey animals who sympathised with the opposition made getting loans for businesses in the city much more difficult for chompers. Since the wealth was largely controlled by these prey lending institutions, the resultant lack of money and business opportunities ended up pushing many of the predators into Happy Town which subsequently became poorer and poorer; though there were no restrictions on what the animals there could and couldn't do. Then around forty years ago came the introduction of the shock collars. The collars were championed as a means by which predators within Zootopia would be "allowed" to move in and around the city. This ended up being supported by many hapless chompers who were longing at that time to have at least some kind of freedom within the city. They were made promises by those in power that there would be better opportunities for them. Prey animals would no longer have to be afraid of predators, who would now be welcomed into the city with open arms.

Of course, any predators living elsewhere but wanting to work within the city needed to be collared as well. As a result, many of the inhabitants of Happy Town were collared, as well. Judy was surprised to read that the vast majority of animals had voted for the collars—predator and prey alike.

 _'They were suckered!'_ thought Judy angrily. Though she could see clearly why: They had been promised opportunity and told that if they weren't bad animals that predators should have no problem being collared. As she read more into it, she came to realise that one of the main and prevailing reasons for Happy Town's incorporation into Zootopia proper was to control and collar _all_ predators—not merely those who had their labour in the city. She had read that Zootopia had incorporated Happy Town somewhere within the last thirty to forty years.

 _'So collaring the predators in Zootopia coincided with their trying to collar all predators in the vicinity of the city, too,'_ she concluded. It also answered the question she'd wondered about when she'd spoken to the stag earlier in the morning: What had originally been two cities—Happy Town and Zootopia—had now become two boroughs under the name Zootopia, with Happy Town keeping its name and the Zootopian peninsula becoming formally known as Animalia; though in practice, Zootopia was still used to refer _only_ to peninsula to the exclusion of Happy Town. The redistricting, then, seemed to have been achieved in name only.

Looking up information on the collars, she found that initial experiments with trying to get set them correctly were disastrous. Severe injuries and burns were incurred by those on whom they were initially tested. Little regard had been given to differences in height and weight. Many predators came close to dying from a failure to take into account those individual factors. Any attempt to cut off the collars would result in an extraordinarily painful shock that could knock the _perpetrator_ out for several hours. Judy read the word perpetrator and mentally substituted the word, "victim." The purpose of this was to knock the chomper out for a long enough time for _it_ to be found and recollared before becoming a danger. Punishments for being found without a collar could include—and here Judy winced and let out a hiss of pain—being _declawed._ Her horror exceeded when she read that within the last few weeks, collars with trackers were being rolled out in order to know where the predators were within the city and where they were going.

Judy finished reading and buried her face in her paws. This was positively incredible to her—as in she literally did not believe it, but the further she read the more she was forced to accept that this is how the world was now. She knew but didn't want to accept that the Nick of this world had likely suffered tremendously at the paws of the prey animals here. She'd be frightened and weary of prey animals for the rest of her life if she'd faced such awful discrimination. While she sat in deep thought, absorbing the impact of what she'd read, she heard her computer let out a small sound indicating that she had received an email. She minimised her browser to take a look at her desktop. She clicked on the icon that led to her work email and found that she had two messages, one of which had been sent much earlier. She saw that they were both from Chief Bogo. She clicked the one she'd just received and read:

_Hopps,_

_I know you're in. Read my email._

_Bogo_

Judy hit the back button and clicked on the other email. Her heart began pounding at what she read.

_Hopps,_

_Regarding what we discussed earlier, you need to find and bring in Nicholas P. Wilde. Today. And just so you're aware, this isn't coming from me but from up top. I've included a photo below so you know what he looks like along with his addresses—place of business and home. Approach him with great caution. There's no telling who he might be willing to kill to escape._

_Find him, and stay safe:_

_Bogo_

From what Judy surmised, her counterpart seemed to have no idea what Nick even looked like. To what extent Hopps had been involved in Nicholas' case remained dubious. The email seemed to imply that she'd had never seen Nick before. She thought over what she needed to do next: She was desperate to find Nick and Chief Bogo told her that she needed to bring him in—for what, she didn't know; but either way it added to the same: she was being asked to look for Nick and was pleased that her personal and professional goals coincided here. A sound behind her caught her attention and she turned from her computer to see Clawhauser standing behind her. She opened her mouth to ask what he needed but he shuffled off before she could say anything. Now, what on Earth had _that_ been about?

She turned back to her computer and saw that it was seven twenty-three. She deleted the emails and pulled up the browser again. She typed in Nick's work address to see if she could find a street level view. While she'd found his address through Nick's police records and been given it again by Chief Bogo in his email to her, she wanted to actually see what kind of business it was. The view revealed a moderately-sized office building with a red roof and a white façade. Judy leant in close to the screen to read the lettering on the sign outside.

 _SPEEDY CARE_  
WALK-IN CLINIC

'Judy snorted. _' _There's no way Nick's anywhere near being a doctor. You don't rack up that kind of record by treating patients.'__ From what it looked like, the clinic was seated on the edge of a corniche. Down below, a few hundred feet, Judy estimated, she could see the wide river: the shore and the cliff side being relatively near each other. Judy closed the browser and logged off her computer. She made sure she had everything, left her cubical, and was headed out of the station when a deep, accented voice from behind her called her back. _'_

"Sgt. Hopps!"

Judy turned to see Chief Bogo walking up to her. "Yes?" she replied coolly.

"You got my messages?"

"I did. I'm headed out now."

Judy had to suppress rolling her eyes when the Chief offered her a can of fox repellent. She knew, given that many animals here seemed to think that she was anti-predator— _"Anti-chomper,"_ she corrected—that her character would likely have been glad to accept the spray. She plastered on a happy smile and took the can gratefully.

"Now I want you to do everything by the books. None of what happened last time."

"I'll do my best," she replied, uncertainly.

"I don't doubt that." He smiled and continued, "I've been here all night. Care to walk me out?"

"You're going home?"

He nodded and they both continued their way out of the building. "Who're you leaving in charge?" she asked.

Bogo yawned the name, "Yaguarete."

Judy's eyes widened. "The jaguar?"

Bogo laughed a little. "Now, now; just calm down," he started, mistaking her question for displeasure, "he may be a savage but he gets the job done."

Judy merely stared ahead, saying nothing. When she reached the patrol car she bade farewell to Bogo who continued on to his truck. She got in and started the engine. The scanner turned on and immediately she heard a terrified voice coming over the airwaves:

". . . -n need of assistance! Prepare a cage at the ZPD: we are apprehending a collarless savage! We're pretty certain we've caught another feral," the male continued, "and again, he is not wearing a collar. I repeat: He is _not_ wearing a collar!"

Judy rolled her eyes, turned off the scanner in disgust, and pulled out of her spot—deciding to make her way around to city hall, just to drive past it and see how it was. She stopped at the parking lot exit and put Nick's work address into her maps app. She asked the phone for voice directions but ignored them as she left the parking lot, going her own way since the city hall lay in the opposite direction. The phone worked to recalculate its directions in the mean time. About a minute later she reached the city hall and looked at it carefully as she drove past.

PEACE THROUGH UNDERSTANDING

Thus read the motto in tarnished bronze lettering on an arch beneath which sprang the waters of a dull fountain. The surrounding gardens were unmanaged and seemed to be growing wildly. It clearly suffered from a want of care, it seemed to her. She sighed and was coming to a red light just as the voice on her phone finished recalculating.

"Turn left, now, onto Happy Town Boulevard."

Judy waited nervously until the light turned green, then made the turn.


	3. A Dream Denied

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Nick awakens to find himself alone. A collarless predator in a world that sees him as even less of an equal, he finds himself at a total loss as to how to react in a strange place. What's a fox to do when he starts to realise the life he'd been living may have been nothing more than the escapist fantasy? What can he do when all the fundamentals of the world he'd known have been replaced by unforgiving cruelty?

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Whew! There was a lot for me to get through on this chapter. I hope you find it to your liking! And if you don't, that's okay, too—there's no accounting for taste and I have no issues receiving criticism.
> 
> I would like once again to thank all of my reviewers! Please let me know if you have any questions that I could answer or if there's anything that I've left unclear that I need to clarify.
> 
> To those who've liked, faved, and followed my story, thank you so much, too! I hope that my writing continues to be worthy of the honour in your appraisal. I extend to you all, as well, the invitation to contact me here if there's something that needs clarifying—anyplace where I may have messed up.
> 
> As I stated before, I welcome any and all criticism pertaining to the story. If I miss a bit of grammar here or there let me know so I can fix it. If there's something that strikes you a mistake or an error let me know so that I can fix that, too; and yes, I do fix mistakes that are pointed out to me. Speaking from personal experience, nothing can take me out of a story more than a misspelt word or a grammatical mistake—especially if they're too common. Any other comments, questions, or concerns? Feel free to PM me.
> 
> Disclaimer: This is a work of fanfiction and has no claim whatsoever on the characters of Nick Wilde and Judy Hopps who are the sole property of The Walt Disney Company. In no way have I sought money, monetary value, nor profit of any kind for the writing of this story.
> 
> Content Advisory: Two things—Copious amounts of swearing and torture both psychological and physical. Nick gets put through the wringer in this one but bear with me if it makes you squeamish since I have every intention of making it up to him.

* * *

 

 _Be not afeard; the isle is full of noises,_  
_Sounds and sweet airs, that give delight and hurt not._  
_Sometimes a thousand twangling instruments_  
_Will hum about mine ears, and sometime voices_  
_That, if I then had waked after long sleep,_  
_Will make me sleep again: and then, in dreaming,_  
_The clouds methought would open and show riches_  
_Ready to drop upon me that, when I waked,_  
_I cried to dream again._

 _—"_ _Caliban," The Tempest, William Shakespeare_

* * *

 

It was the smell of fresh flowers that stirred him. His nose twitched as while he was dreaming his mind recognised that something was different. There was a cool breeze that ruffled the fur on his shoulders that carried with it the scent of earth and sweet grass. The morning twilight and the sound of chirping birds reached his ears; and in the half-sleep that cradled him, he smiled and reached out for Judy . . . and fell out of the chair he'd been sitting in. Nick rolled onto his back and opened his eyes as he was jarred awake to find himself staring not at the ceiling of his apartment but at the wide open sky. The stars were fading as the early light became steadily brighter. Fully awake now, Nick sat bolt upright, startled and momentarily disoriented. _'What? Where am I?'_ he wondered, bewildered, as he took in his surroundings and looked around to see if he could figure out where he was.

He noticed on his right the stone bridge he used to sleep under when he was homeless. _'What the . . . ?'_ His thought broke off as he got up and noticed that the chair he'd fallen out of was the green and white chequered one he used to laze in when not running schemes. He was wearing his khaki pants, thank God, since he was out in the open but was bemused as he distinctly remembered having fallen asleep pantsless and tied with his mate. He left the chair where it was as he walked past it, coming closer to the stone bridge. He pinned his ears back as he approached.

"Carrots?" he called out tentatively. "Hey, ya' got me: Joke's over!" he said loudly, certain that this had to be some devious prank she was pulling. She had said only last night, after all, that she was going to get him back for scaring her. There was no answer, however, and the eerie stillness was making his fur stand on end. "Hey, where are you?" he asked again, his voice echoing through the arch. He turned around slowly while continuing forward underneath the bridge. He noticed, much to his discomfort, that his side was sore. He rubbed his shoulder to work some of the ache out of it. _'Well, where the hell is she?'_ he wondered. This had to be some kind of elaborate prank. "Carrots?" he called out again; " _Judy?_ " he shouted, sharply now. He scowled and flattened his ears when there was still no answer. He saw that his green palm-leaf pattern shirt was on the ground in a crumpled ball as he used to leave before going to bed. The way he'd used to _before_ he'd met Judy. He really had come a long way since those days, he thought to himself. He used drawers and everything, now! He picked up his shirt, shook it out, and looked at it: The buttons were all undone, his tie was loosened around the collar; it looked exactly as he remembered it.

"Judy!" he shouted again, loudly as he turned his head this way and that. But he was alone and there was a part of him that sensed that.

He knew he was in a park-like area of Savannah Central which wasn't very busy at this time of morning and this far away from the more heavily populated areas of the city. Nick looked around carefully as he came out from under the bridge: No tire tracks, no footprints—especially not Judy's—save for his own. _'Why am I here?'_ he wondered. He was utterly baffled by the situation: outdoors, shirtless, and under his bridge. And here he'd been hoping for some early we-don't-have-to-go-to-work-today cuddle time with Judy. This had to be a joke of some kind but it wasn't funny to him. _'This is actually really annoying.'_ He sighed and made to look around again but was startled when he heard a scream behind him. He turned and saw a young beaver looking right at him. Upon seeing her, Nick yelled out in surprise, recoiling, and quickly covered his torso with his shirt as best he could. "Turn away! Don't look!" he shouted. But she wouldn't stop screaming.

_'Okay, but seriously, she won't stop screaming.'_

She paused to take a breath.

"Are you-"

She resumed screaming again till she ran out of air, paused to take another breath . . .

"-done?"

. . . and started screaming again.

Now, he was beginning to think that there was something seriously wrong with her. He momentarily considered walking toward her to figure out what the matter was but dismissed the idea almost immediately when he realised how it would look to have a shirtless fox advancing on a young . . . _–ish . . ._ beaver. He also realised that the cause of her concern might have been the fact that she came upon an unexpected scene in the early morning. He ducked under the bridge and put on his shirt. As he finished buttoning the shirt, he heard two voices coming closer and he looked out to see two other animals coming to the young woman's aid from over the bank of the wash.

"What's all your shouting about, Mable?" came a decidedly masculine voice. The beaver who'd been screaming, Mable, merely pointed straight at Nick. When the older male, presumably the girl's father, laid his eyes on Nick he gasped and let out a scream.

"Oh my God! Get _back_ , Mable!" he shouted. The terrified male picked up a relatively long branch from the bank of the wash and started advancing on Nick and swinging it menacingly. "Get _back_ , you savage! _Get back!_ " Nick flattened his ears, completely taken aback at the man's reaction. He came out from beneath the bridge and began walking backwards away from the wildly swinging creature.

"Sir, I'm gonna need you to just calm down!" said Nick, going for an authoritative tone.

"Harold, get away from it! Cheese and Crackers, that thing could rip you to shreds!" called another hysterical voice. Nick saw the young woman he'd originally seen sobbing into the chest of an older female whom he took to be the younger one's mother. In his distraction, Nick caught a swipe of the branch across his face drawing a cry from Nick.

"Ouch!" he yelled, and he reflexively caught the branch when the male made to swipe at him again. He angrily wrenched the branch out of the beaver's paw. "I'll have you know that you just assaulted a police officer with the ZPD!" he shouted. He ran his paw across the left side of his muzzle and looked down at his palm to see that it had come away with blood, the branch's hard stems having cut him. He advanced on the animal who backed away fearfully.

"Daddy!" shrieked the girl as the father tripped over a rock as he backed away from the fox.

"Sir," began Nick, "I'm gonna need you to turn around and put your paws behind your back." He spoke as flatly and as calmly as he could given the situation—almost sounding bored. His anger, however, was screaming at him to fight the beaver. "You're under arrest for assaulting an officer," he finished. Nick looked around for something with which to restrain the male. When he found nothing, he remembered the tie around his neck. As he loosened it, he continued, "Just . . . pretend like you're handcuffed right now."

"You're the one who's gonna be under arrest, chomper!" shouted the mother, her face a mask a general hate and rage such as Nick had rarely seen directed at him.

"When I saw it before it was naked!" exclaimed the daughter.

"You liar!" shouted Nick, embarrassed and disgusted at the insinuation. But no one paid his outburst any mind.

"You savage!" cried the mother as she became hysterical, "What were you going to do to my daughter?!" she shouted.

During the exchange, the father had risen to his feet. He spat and regarded Nick angrily. "You filthy fox! What the hell were you doing to our daughter?!" his spoke, his voice growing louder as his anger grew.

"Did you not hear what I said? She's lying!" said Nick, raising his voice as he assumed his authority, "And!" he continued, "I said turn around and put your paws behind your back. I'm an officer with the ZPD. And for the record, _nothing_ happened with your daughter. I was _not_ naked when she saw me!" He finished untying his tie as he said this.

"Daddy! It's lying!" shouted the daughter as her tears poured ever more profusely down her innocent-looking face. As Nick came closer to the male beaver in an attempt to placate him, she screamed and shrieked, "Daddy, look out!"

"I know, honey, I know. It's not wearing its collar it's just gone a little crazy. Try not to make any loud noises, though. Just let daddy handle this," replied the male softly though fearfully as Nick approached.

"I'm not lying," stated Nick. He was positively furious!

"Call the police!" shouted the beaver as he became alarmed at Nick's repeated outbursts; and Nick watched as the girl ran off.

"Sir!" shouted Nick as he finally lost his temper, "Put your paws behind your back, _now!_ "

The beaver turned back to Nick, fear showing in his eyes but made no move to comply. Nick had had it.

"Alright, sir," began Nick as he came toward the beaver, "I'm just gonna nee-"

Nick was suddenly cut off when a relatively heavy rock struck him on the side of the head. He cried out as it bounced off his head. Nick fell forward onto the ground in a daze at which moment the male beaver fell on him punching his head and kicking his ribs and stomach. Nick coughed, his limbs buckling under the onslaught of blows; he rolled to his side and groaned as the male beaver stood over him. "Look at it," said the male beaver to his wife, contempt evident in his voice, "there's no reason to fear 'em." The beaver looked down at Nick disdainfully and spat in his face. The beaver turned and went up the side of the bank to rejoin his wife.

"Harold!" she cried when he reached her, "that was a very stupid thing! It could have killed you!"

 _'Are they fucking serious?'_ thought Nick as he spat out blood, his head still ringing from having had a heavy rock launched at his head.

"Now, now, don't fret," said the male as he patted his wife, calming her. "Besides, someone had to teach that thing a lesson." He smiled down at his wife.

"You're so brave," she whispered as she leant into him.

If Nick had rolled his eyes any harder he was certain they'd've ended up in orbit. He simply lay there and listened to their conversation, just taking it in. He had no idea whether the daughter had called the police but he wouldn't bet on it since it was so obviously an assault on his person. He needed to call the ZPD himself.

_'While I'm at it, how 'bout a paramedic and getting the hell away from these animals, too?'_

Enough was enough. He was going to find Judy and figure out why the hell she'd decided to prank him—likely with Finnick's help: there's no way "kind and sweet Judy" would think to do something so devious as to leave him in the middle of some deserted place. Well, maybe she would _think_ about it.

 _'Maybe._ Very _maybe. In fact, yes.'_

He knew, of course, that the prank had merely been to drive him someplace remote and have him find his way back; the prank did _not_ include being beaten by a herd of angry beavers.

He figured that it _had_ to be a prank. First, he reasoned, he'd been with Judy the night before—tied to her, in fact—and that would have lasted a good deal of the night. Therefore he could only have been taken to this place relatively recently; perhaps about an hour to an hour and a half or so ago or the chill would have woken him. Judy was not a mean-spirited mammal, which meant anything she did was done out of the goodness of her heart or out of playfulness. He'd been pranked in similar fashions before so he imagined that this was simply a play on that. Where he started to think that the prank was out of character for her was when she hadn't even stuck around to bring him back. That aspect might have been more Finnick's style. But that made no sense: she would have had to have called Finnick early in the morning in order to set him up unless they had this whole prank planned before hand. But that made no sense either because their becoming mates last night was totally unplanned and would have derailed plans for a prank such as this quite a bit. While it made no sense, though, it had to be the truth. What other reasonable explanation was there?

He turned these things over for a short while before noticing that the beavers were out of sight. After recouping enough energy to get his wind and senses back, he braced himself and got to his feet with a groan; managing to stumble along, up the wash bank opposite his attackers. Once he got to level ground he turned back and could see the family: they seemed to be involved in some kind of group huddle, chatting and comforting each other. He turned away in disgust and started shuffling his way down the road which led toward the downtown area whose buildings he could see in the distance. He searched himself for his phone but found he didn't have it, and there was no way he was going back to the bridge to see if he'd dropped it somewhere. He'd also dropped the tie when the male had beaten him. _'Another write-off,'_ he thought. As near as he could tell, he had none of his personal effects on him and that was bound to cause him some trouble down the line. He stuck to the side of the road, hoping to flag down a passing driver or morning jogger to use their cell phone. He seriously needed to call the police.

As he went along he couldn't keep his mind from recapitulating the oddness of the situation: Last night he'd been with Judy in his apartment; moments ago he'd awoken at the stone bridge he used to sleep at—the only thing that made sense was that Judy had moved him here or at least done so with someone's help. He knew for a fact, however, that Judy wasn't so devious as to move him here, especially not after they'd shared their feelings the other night, which could only mean that if she'd done this it had been as a prank. But of course, she wouldn't have, and that was the point—That was the _very_ uncomfortable point. This wasn't in keeping with her sense of humour. The idea that _someone—_ not Judy and, upon reflection, likely not Finnick either—would have taken the time to find his old shirt and pants, somehow steal him away from Judy and his apartment without his knowing, and sit him in the same chair he'd used when he was still hustling _and_ near the same bridge he used to sleep under? That made no sense. Very few people with whom he worked and hung out with really knew that much about who he'd been at that point in his life and the full details of his day-to-day. This wasn't a joke, he concluded. But then what the hell was this?

He had no idea and it was pointless to continue considering it since there was no way to come to any conclusion that added up. He sighed and thought back angrily at the memory of the beavers. He'd experienced that kind of treatment before, of course, but now it somehow felt so much worse. The male had _really_ tried to hurt him. _'And that girl was seriously . . . seriously afraid of me.'_ He hated thinking about it—hated the fear he saw in the girl's eyes. It reminded him of the awful time he'd seen that same look in Judy's. His chest seized at the recollection. They'd called him a _savage_ and had seemed genuinely terrified of him; that he was going to _kill_ them. Why did they think that? It pained him in a way he hadn't expected, though he did his best to swallow the sensation. He'd get over it eventually, but for now, he was so angry and hurt he didn't know what to do! He just wanted to see Judy.

 _'Never let them see that they get to you.'_ He never thought he'd have to say the words to himself again. He'd been able to drop the mask in front of Judy. He'd been able to be himself, and for the past year and a half, he'd been a damn good cop. He had a larger circle of friends now. Finnick, of course, would always remain a loyal and dear friend of his; but being able to have a network of new friends with whom he could be totally honest rather than just one, and learning that he could be open with the rest of the world, had been a gigantic weight off his shoulders. Having animals who would back him up and who cared about him made all the difference. It had been a long time, or so it felt, since he'd thought it necessary to rely on his old skills. He and Judy had spoken the other night about their fears—their good days and their bad days—and this was shaping up to be a bad day. He'd feel better once he got back to her and saw his friends—the ZPD itself having become for him the pack he'd always wanted when he was younger.

Nick looked around as he walked along the roadside and took in his surroundings. He found them somehow changed—different—from how he remembered them. The area he was in was somewhat scenic, however: There were grass and trees on either side of the road which he remembered from before. What was different was what lay up ahead of him: there was a suburban development spread out before him that he would have sworn hadn't been there before. Alarms started sounding in his head but he explained away his disorientation by telling himself that he must have been mistaken, somehow. _'You know how fast these kinds of neighbourhoods can spring up . . . .'_

After a few minutes of walking, he finally saw someone, a jogger, heading in his direction as he listened to music strapped to an armband as he came up the opposite side of the road. Nick was grateful and felt a sense of relief when the jogger came within shouting distance. "Hey!" Nick called out. The jogger—who appeared to have not noticed him until that moment—turned his head and saw Nick standing across the road. After a split second the jogger, a guinea pig, widen his eyes in shock. He immediately turned in the opposite direction and _ran_.

"Hey, wait!" shouted Nick, "Can I use your phone!" he finished quietly as the jogger got further and further away. He sighed, disappointed and annoyed at the way he was being treated. Nick watched as the animal ran on till he was out of sight, disappearing into the suburbs whence he'd come. Savannah Central had _never_ been this way, thought Nick. _'I guess that's what you get when hicks start moving here.'_ But that thought gave him pause—rarely had he _ever_ seen such open discrimination. Condescension? Sure. Even outright dislike and name calling; but never out-and-out violence! Silver tongue and guile were two things he had on his side, but they were decidedly unhelpful if someone weren't willing to give him the benefit of the doubt.

In his observations of animals, he had noticed and exploited in his con-artist days the presumption of innocence. No matter where he went or whom he'd conned, it had to be someone who didn't know him well enough to guess that he was trying to pull the wool over their eyes—and it had to be someone who didn't know him. Or know him well. This presumption of innocence—or presumption of truth—carried over even into situations where people contradicted each other: It was easy enough for people to accuse the other of "not being entirely truthful," but he noticed they shied away from calling each other "liars." That's in part the reason why the question, "Are you calling me a liar?" was often disarming.

There was only one other instance when he found that animals didn't automatically presume that he was truthful and that was when they'd assumed because of his species that he was nothing but a shifty fox. And while he had been, the fact that he was shifty had nothing to do with being a fox. For starters, people on the margins of society often needed to develop tricksterish behaviours in order to survive. The cynicism which he'd never quite escaped after meeting Judy served him well as a cop and gave him an insight into animal nature that might have been missing from his partner's vision. While she had the idealism and the hope to build a dream, he had enough of a realistic grasp on most situations that he was able to judge a suspect's credibility rather swiftly. Of course, it helped that he'd lived that life himself and knew, therefore, what lies thieves and hucksters would tell to get out of trouble.

So now it seemed as though he had found himself in an area of Zootopia where the opposite of his most recent experiences was true. It seemed to him that not only had there been a presumption that he was merely untrustworthy but that he had something murderous (in the case of the beaver family) or violent (as seemed to have been the case with the jogger who'd just run from him) in mind. The beaver family had lashed out at him in what he felt certain was, from their perspective, self-defence—they had felt, he reasoned, that they needed to defend themselves against him. To the point where they'd nearly killed him. Had the rock been heavier or hit his temple—or both—it very well could have! Perhaps he was kidding himself—Zootopia had always been this awful and he was only now just noticing it after having this awfulness piled on him all at once. He'd known things were bad, he mused, just not _this_ bad. Still, there was something that didn't quite sit right with him.

He'd been walking slowly down the road for a total of about twenty minutes, pausing every now and then to soothe his aching head, and finally reached the suburban dwellings that seemed to have been designed for smaller creatures. As he entered and proceeded to walk through it, he got the uneasy feeling that he didn't belong. He walked around the area for some time, encountering the odd prey animal who would either freeze, scream, or run away, or some combination thereof, when they saw him pass by. The queasy feeling in his stomach continued to grow as the sense of unfamiliarity and the feeling that he was out of his element snowballed. It was really unnerving him, but he kept his cool for the most part. He'd've been lying if he said that the reactions he was receiving weren't getting to him. The overt displays of prejudice were disturbing him—for as often as he'd been discriminated against, it had always been more in a more subversive way; a sort of stealth speciesism. It was uncanny, and as he walked down the street and saw signs dictating when chompers had to be out of the area he _knew_ that something was very, very wrong.

 _'Chompers . . . ? When did it become okay to call us that?'_ He'd never even heard the term before to say nothing of the legality of a curfew for predators. He assumed that that's what the term "chompers" referred to but got a sense from the way that animals were using it that it was meant as a derogatory term. He read signs dictating whether predators could hang out in large groups, whether they were allowed to show their teeth, whether they could growl.

 _'As if you could control whether something makes you angry. Why not pass laws that say you can't smile?'_ This was ridiculous. You couldn't pass laws like this! Not in any Zootopia _he_ knew of. As he walked along Nick jumped when he heard something shatter behind him.

"Chomper! Savage! Tameless freak!" came a voice behind him. Nick turned in surprise to see a gang of four pikas advancing on him and more on the way. "Get back to Happy Town!"

A different member of the gang threw another bottle at him, shattering it inches from his feet. Nick cocked his head and smirked, hoping that affecting his sly and confident mask would intimidate them. "I hope you know I can have you arrested for threatening an officer. So why don't you jus-"

"Oooh, boys! Looks like we got a growler here!" said another one of the gang. They all started laughing amongst themselves

A police siren sounded behind Nick, surprising him. He turned as a feminine voice called out, "Is there a problem here?" He saw that the voice had come from a patrol car that was just pulling up. The officer, a pig, had her head out the window of the vehicle and was looking at them expectantly. When she saw Nick, her eyes widened and she quickly parked her car on the side of the road opposite Nick. The officer got out of the car and came toward them. The instant she got a good look at Nick she sucked in her breath, looking fearful, before reaching for what Nick could see was fox repellent on her belt. "Sir, you're under arrest! Please place your paws behind your back!"

Nick actually laughed but stopped when no one else joined him. "Oh, come on, there's no way I'm under arrest!" shouted Nick, suddenly turning serious. From the moment he'd awoken, it seemed, he'd been running into obstacle after obstacle and he was fed up to the teeth with it! He noticed that there were two tranq guns on the officer's belt, one on each side, and saw the officer shakily moved her paw from the fox repellent to the tranq on her left side and withdrew it. Nick had never seen a tranq gun like that: From what he could see, it seemed to have a barrel about four inches long.

 _'Small darts,'_ he thought to himself. _'Gotta be something potent.'_

The shape of the gun reminded him of the gun that had fired the night howler serum but was slightly smaller. "There's no need to tranq me," said Nick coolly. He put his paws up to demonstrate that he wasn't a threat. "I am an officer too."

"No way you're an officer!" she laughed. "If you were you'd know this ain't a tranq. Which precinct you from? Happy Town?"

"Happy Town?"

"You aren't from there?"

"No, I'm from here! This _is_ Zootopia, right? What's Happy Town?" He was totally confused now. His brow furrowed and looked at the officer as though she were crazy.

"Happy Town's where you belong. Unless you work in the city, you can't be here—that's offence number one! This isn't your territory and you're breaking the law _and_ you got your collar off. Not sure how you did that without knocking yourself out but it doesn't matter. I'm going to ask you one more time, sir, to put your paws behind your back. No one needs to get hurt."

 _'Get hurt?!'_ his mind shouted.

"Okay, I'm not from Happy Town. I'm from here! And I really am a cop! I work in the city!" said Nick, now starting to get angry but was trying very hard to keep his voice calm.

"Oh yeah? Let's see your ID."

Nick's ears flattened. "I don't have one . . . ."

"Passport? Badge?"

"Passport?" repeated Nick. He felt as though the walls were closing in on him, feeling more and more cornered with each passing moment.

"Yeah, your passport? Heh, don't tell me you don't have a passport."

Nick just stared at her blankly. "I . . . no, I don't have a passport." He had never needed one. A terrible sinking feeling was starting to form in the pit of his stomach. One thing he always needed in order to gain someone's confidence or to talk his way out of danger was at least some handle on the situation—some kind of control. That was one thing he was starting to realise he didn't have in the slightest, and that thought was starting to alarm him more and more. He felt as though he were losing his handle on reality and he had no idea what to do about it: every action he'd taken so far seemed to be getting him into more and more trouble; and the more he spoke the more he got the sense that things were no longer as they seemed and he didn't know why. His mind vacillated between two impossible scenarios: One, he'd gone crazy and nothing was as it seemed; or two, he wasn't crazy and the experiences he was having were actually happening to him—but if that were true, nothing else that had happened in his life up to this point made any sense! He needed to get to the ZPD quickly— _they_ would recognise him He was sure of it! Everything would be explained to him and he wouldn't have to worry.

As he thought these things the officer smiled what could only be described as an evil grin. "So I've not only got you on not wearing your collar, which is a felony offence, but I've also got you on not having a passport?" Her expression darkened. "Either way, I've got you dead to rights."

"Wait, what?!" exclaimed Nick, "This is crazy!"

"He was going to attack us!" shouted one of the pikas behind Nick. "We were just going home and he attacked us! So we threw bottles at him to defend ourselves!"

"That's not the way it happened!" shouted Nick as both the pikas and the officer began to advance on him. Nick mentally swore. It was one of the supreme ironies of his life that for the majority of his existence he could gain the confidence of animals and be believed when he was really lying and was thought to be lying when he told the truth. He felt as if he were back in those days again when he had to scramble. He turned his gaze to the officer whose face appeared menacing. "Hey, what they're saying's not true!" he said to her earnestly; "I was just walking through this part of town-" he looked around as he spoke and realised how foreign this place and situation were to him, "-and these guys started throwing bottles at me."

He felt a rising tide of fear well up within him. _He didn't recognise_ any of _this!_ He felt as though he had suddenly fallen from the world he recognised to a world that operated differently. He had been willing to go along with what he was seeing and experiencing in order to survive. That was his default mode in unfamiliar situations, but there was a time and a place for it. Normally he at least had some frame of reference; if nothing else he at least knew what part of the city he was in. He knew he was in Savannah Central but that meant nothing to him because as it was, he didn't recognise it. He knew this city like the back of his paw and one thing after another just kept piling on and piling on. Sure, he could believe that in certain parts of town the cops ran their beats differently. He could _not_ believe there was a part of town that would _legally_ be allowed to put up signs prohibiting chompers— _'Preds!'_ his mind shouted—from certain sections of the city.

And that was another thing, too! Calling predators "chompers" in formal situations but switching that up with the word savage every now and again? Or how about the way that he'd been beaten and the fact that _no one_ seemed to care? Hell, the way that the cop in front of him seemed to _totally_ ignore the fact that he had clearly been in a fight at some point during the morning was utterly foreign to him. He was on the verge of being arrested for not wearing a collar— _'Whatever the hell that means . . . .'_ —and now the little pikas were telling lies about him with no proof whatsoever and were being believed while he, an actual officer, was having his testimony heavily scrutinised or dismissed out of paw!

_'For what? Being a predator?!'_

"For the last time, sir, put your paws behind your back!"

Nick stood there, stone faced. His integrity was crumbling. This couldn't be happening. "But I . . . ."

"Save it! You know, it's real funny because just before I ran across you I heard a call come out over the scanner saying that a red fox had just sexually assaulted a young beaver. That wouldn't be you would it?" She asked the question with a tone suggesting that she already knew the answer and was moving her paw slowly to her utility belt . . .

Nick sucked in breath. "There's been a misundersta-" He never got the chance to finish:

Before he could move, the officer had pulled out the fox repellent from her holster and sprayed him right in the eyes. Nick covered his face instantly as his nose, lungs, and sinuses were filled with an awful burning sensation that went deep into his chest, burning his throat! He stumbled to the ground and couldn't breathe for what felt like a minute, choking and coughing with every breath. He felt the officer grab his arm and he shook it off and tried to stand. He staggered blindly and felt a blow across his head that knocked him down again.

He finally did manage to stand and broke into a run.

"Stop!" shouted the officer behind him.

He ignored her and ran blindly down the street, away from the officer whom he could easily outrun. He pushed himself to go faster, the pain in his face and lungs increasing as he sucked in breath. He was unsure what was going on behind him but heard a series of loud cracks—like the sound of a car backfiring—which only pushed him to keep going. He felt tranq darts whizzing past his ears; one coming so close that he felt its wake slightly part the fur on his head. He went on long enough until he was certain that the officer was far behind him but forced himself to keep going anyway.

The officer put away her weapon and went to her patrol car. She pulled out the mic and spoke. "This is officer Bauer. I'm calling to report a collarless mammal—a red fox—running loose in Pika Town. Requesting immediate backup. Seems it's the same one that caused the assault this morning. I'm not touching this one so I'm hoping you'll send out the bit guns." After receiving confirmation she continued on her way.

-.-.-.-

Nick ran on for a few minutes till he was sure he wasn't being followed. He forced one of his eyes open and, through the tears and pain he felt, spied an alley on his right amongst the rows of apartment buildings that got taller as he went and ran down it as quickly as he could. It stank badly but he had to look for a place to hide. Finding a relatively large dumpster through his bleary vision, he forced the hatch open, climbed up the side and jumped in. He left the top open to ventilate the stench. He thanked the heavens that the dumpster was filled with lawn clippings and the grass from a recently mowed lawn which did much to dampen the other less-pleasant smells emanating from the container. He allowed himself to relax as much as he could and settled into the trimmings, using them as a kind of mattress. His mind was reeling and he tried to force his eyes to stay open so that his tears would wash out the repellent.

He was losing his grip. Everywhere he went he was being attacked! He knew it had been stupid to run away from the police officer but what the hell had she been thinking when she sprayed him and he hadn't even done anything? Nick sighed as the pain throughout his face and chest began to subside. The next time he saw some officers he would just try to explain his situation before things got out of control. He _really_ needed to talk to Judy, now, and take solace in her. He felt as though he going crazy! While he had considered that option before it was only now that he was really starting to believe it.

Some time had passed before Nick felt well enough to try to move. He needed to get to the city and to a hospital quickly. He groaned as he got up and climbed out of the dumpster. His feet had just touched the ground when he saw a police car drive by the alley he was in. As he walked toward the mouth of the alley he heard the police car turn around and start back toward him. It turned down the alley and made its way to him. He was honestly a little frightened when he'd seen it pass by the alley initially but he needed medical attention and had resolved to just give himself up. He staggered and waited for them to pull up to him but instead found to his surprise that they stopped quite a ways away. Puzzled, he saw the two officers, one of them a rhino whom he recognised as Rhinowitz, get out of the car and stand behind their doors as though they worried that he was armed and might attack.

"Alright, chomper," shouted the rhino, "We're gonna need you to put your paws in the air!"

Nick cocked and eyebrow before making his face settle into its usual smirk, hoping against hope that he'd be able to get control of the situation. He started toward them and the rhino pulled out that small tranq gun and aimed it at him. His surprise increased when he turned to the other officer, a koala he didn't recognise, and saw that his paws were shaking as he held _his_ tranq on him.

"Guys . . ." started Nick smoothly, "so glad you were finally able to make it to the party. I've only been wandering around here for the past few minutes. You know, if you wanna catch the guy who did this to me," he said, referring to the beaver who'd beaten him, "you're gonna find him down the road."

"What did you do to him, savage?" asked Rhinowitz.

"Huh?" asked Nick, genuinely perplexed. "Nothing. I didn't do anything to him. His wife nailed me on the side of my head with a rock and he beat me up!" This was getting tiresome _real_ quick. And the fact that people kept calling him words like chomper and savage was infuriating. "That's assault! Don't you care?!" he shouted at last as he lost his composure.

"Fuck you! I want you on the ground right fucking now, savage, you're under arrest!"

"What did they tell you?" asked Nick, his unease starting to give way to dismay and even fear.

"I said, 'On the ground!' _Now,_ you filthy fox!"

It was one insult too many. "What the hell is wrong with you?!" shouted Nick as he snapped. 'You _can't_ talk to me like that! That beaver down the road just assaulted me and if he hadn't called you guys _I_ would have!" His voice and tone were desperate, the cool mask having fallen totally from his face.

"Stop resisting, fox, and get on the ground now!" shouted the koala.

"You shoulda stayed in Happy Town, savage, if you didn't want trouble!" said Rhinowitz.

Nick couldn't believe it but he felt his old instincts coming to the forefront. His mind positively rebelled at what was happening! There was no way that he wasn't recognisable to the rhino. A horrifying feeling began to form in the pit of his stomach and his ears bent back. He opened his mouth to speak when another police car pulled up from the other side of the alley, blocking any potential exit. The officers got out of the car.

Nick couldn't see the ones behind him as his focus was on the rhino and koala. He heard a voice from behind him shout, "You're surrounded, fox! Give it up!"

This was a misunderstanding. This was clearly a misunderstanding! He knew now that this wasn't a routine arrest. He had a sense now that if they caught him something far worse was in store for him. This was _all_ his mind needed to know for his body to start jacking up his adrenaline levels. He needed to escape and escape quickly!

 _'I'm not a criminal!'_ his mind shouted. _'Not anymore!'_

He tried to calm his pounding heart and raised his paws in spite of his better judgement. His old instincts were telling him that something was dangerously wrong and he didn't know what. Once they took him to the ZPD and everyone there saw him they'd know that they'd made a mistake and everything would be cleared up, his rational mind insisted. The past year and a half _couldn't_ have been a dream! He repeated this reassuring mantra in his mind but his heart knew it was a lie. He made himself raise his paws higher.

The rhino kept his tranq trained on Nick as he heard one of the officers behind him shout into his intercom. "Officer in need of assistance! Prepare a cage at the ZPD: we are apprehending a collarless savage! We're pretty certain we've caught another feral," the male continued, "and again, he is not wearing a collar. I repeat: He is _not_ wearing a collar!"

He turned around and saw the two officers behind him pull out two animal control poles with adjustable nooses at their ends.

"H-hey now!" started Nick as he felt the wind leave him at the sight of the poles. "Hey, I-I'll come willingly you don't have to-"

"Shut the fuck up, savage!" shouted the koala.

Nick was becoming more panicked by the moment.

"Just step into the noose!" he heard one of the officers behind him shout. They were all walking toward him now; trying to corner him against the wall of the alley.

His adrenaline, fear, anger, and rage all burst within him and he shot out quickly and made to get out of the alley. In his blind desire to escape, he'd chosen the path through the rhino—a choice which proved disastrous. Nick fell to the ground completely winded when the rhino slammed him in the chest and back into the middle of the semi-circle and found himself momentarily unable to move. As he gasped for breath and tried to process the pain he was feeling in his chest and stomach, he felt the nooses of the animal control poles swipe over his head and tighten from either side of him. He tried to reach up to get his paws underneath the braided plastic of the nooses but was surprised when he felt both of the officers pull on their poles from each side of his neck, choking him! His breath rattled as he tried to let out a scream of terror. He closed his eyes and fought—He struck out like a terrified animal on the brink of death! Several kicks and slams to his face and chest subdued him. He opened his eyes and saw them bring out a muzzle. He jerked away and tried to scream but was held in place by the nooses. He felt as an officer put it on over his face and tighten the harness so that the straps bit into his skin.

He lay there on his side, his mind in defeat and nearly broken as they wrenched his paws behind him and shackled them tightly along with his feet. They laughed and took turns kicking him in the face and ribs till they felt he'd had enough. As was yanked up by the handcuffs, he let out a muffled cry of pain as he felt his shoulders nearly come out of their sockets from the way his arms were being twisted and bent behind him. He tried to stand to relieve some of the pressure on his joints but they dragged him along too quickly. He was thrown onto the floor in the back of one of the police cars, his mind too far gone to track what exactly was happening. The officers slammed the door behind him and got into the patrol cars, themselves.

This was everything he'd ever been afraid of—everything he had ever tried to protect himself against when he cut himself off from the world. He had no idea what the hell was going on but he didn't care. He'd been certain that this was a dream. That this wasn't really happening. That he was going to wake up next to his lovely mate. _'Judy!'_ he thought. His heart burned and he longed to see her. Somehow, though, he knew he wasn't going to. This was too real, his mind told him.

As he felt the car start and drive away from the alley, a sorrowful thought crossed his mind. He had imagined last night what his life might have been without Judy and wondered fondly whether his life with her were a dream. Now he found himself considering the terrifying possibility that it _had_ been. What other explanation was there? There were several uncanny things that made him think so, too: Even at its worst, nothing like this had ever happened to him in the city. The only thing comparable was his treatment at the paws of the Junior Rangers Club. As badly as he'd been made to feel and as hurt as he was, he'd never felt the threat of death. This brought it all back. He was suddenly a kit again, alone and frightened as the pack to which he thought he belonged mercilessly beat him and muzzled him. He was an untrustworthy fox—and everyone who met him sought to do him harm. His almost being iced at the paws of Mr. Big didn't even come close to what he was feeling now. At least in that instance, he had a sense that he could find his way out of it. And he had.

 _'No,_ she _had!'_ he reminded himself.

He drifted in and out of consciousness and caught snatches of conversations. A comment here or there about "keeping this one off the books." His heart sank as he felt in his bones that his troubles were nowhere near being over. He only hoped that once they got to the ZPD someone would see him—that someone would recognise him. That the ZPD would recognise immediately the telltale signs of police brutality. In his heart of hearts, however, he knew that he couldn't rely on that. Not anymore. His faith had been shattered and he realised now that he could no longer presume that he knew what this world had in store for him. He laughed to himself bitterly as he realised that the inertia of his life had somehow flipped the script—whereas he once was a con-man who relied on the presumptive trust of those whom he would then betray he now found his own trust betrayed. His last thought before succumbing once again to the darkness was of his longing for Judy.

-.-.-.-

Sgt. Judy Hopps stormed through the doors of the ZPD. Her eyes landed on Cevilla at the front desk and she walked over to her—shoulders back, head looking straight out; determined. Her mood was foul after having discovered her patrol car and her phone missing. Cevilla looked her over and saw that the rabbit had changed her outfit. She was no longer in uniform and was instead wearing a floral pattern blouse and a pair of jeans. She raised an eyebrow, a bit perplexed as to the rabbit's return.

"Uh . . . good morning . . ." said Cevilla uncertainly. The rabbit's demeanour and her choice of outfit were at odds with each other in every way.

"Yeah right. I've been trying to get a hold of you guys for an hour. My phone's missing and so is the patrol car. Gonna fill out a report on it, now."

"Um . . . aren't you supposed to be out right now?"

"I know today was my day off but I had to come in when I found my things missing. It was faster just to take the metro down here than to have to worry about borrowing someone's phone."

"Wouldn't it have been better for you to get into contact with us ASAP?"

"The car's not going anywhere that can't be traced in a day and once we find the car we find the perp; we find the perp we find my phone. That's why I'm in today."

"No, I meant, like, out on patrol. I thought I saw y-"

"Out on patrol?"

"Yeah, Chief said that he sent you an email." Cevilla smiled nervously. "You sure get all the fun ones . . ." she finished lamely.

Hopps looked at her oddly for a moment before narrowing her eyes. "Shut up Cevilla."

Cevilla crossed her arms in annoyance as Hopps went on to her cubical.

Sgt. Hopps logged into her email but found no messages from the chief. Cevilla, that brainless moron, had probably gotten her wires crossed again. _'Better go downstairs and ask Clawhauser what he knows. If there's one thing,_ he can _get shit done. At least he seems to know what's what around here.'_ She went down the steps to the basement level making a left at the landing and through the narrow hallway that led to the records room. She rapped loudly on the open door to get the attention of the workers.

"Excuse me!" she shouted loudly, "anybody seen Clawhauser? The Chief might've left instructions for me around here somewhere and I'm hoping he might know what they are."

Bogo had still been working when she left for home the other night. She was relatively certain that he'd spent the majority of the night awake and trying to work out the details of a case that they'd been working on:

From what she and Bogo could tell, something in the city was causing animals to go feral. While it had been merely a few at first, the number had grown exponentially within the last few weeks. In every instance of this phenomenon they had been able to keep the incident a secret to a greater or lesser extent. They had been working on several leads as to who might have an idea on why this was happening: whether drug-related or something else. All of their suspects were chompers, of course. She suspected it was to do with some kind of substance that was being peddled in the chomper subculture. She just needed to find the epicentre—the place where it was finding the widest distribution. She had no idea where that might have been but she knew that it had to be someplace in Happy Town. Counterintuitively, however, the bulk of the transformations were taking place in Animalia.

The chompers in records turned and merely looked at her, not one of them daring to speak.

 _'Typical,'_ she thought as she regarded them.

"So!" she shouted more loudly still, "Clawhauser? Where is he? _Hello?!_ "

A younger wolf, one of the new hires, replied, "He isn't here, Sarge. He went home. He said he was feeling sick."

She rolled her eyes in annoyance. "Does anybody here know anything about instructions that Bogo left for me? Possibly an email?"

They all looked around at each other nervously and that made her uneasy. Hopps was sure they knew something but she didn't want to press them.

_'Better to keep these things to yourself or you may play your trumps too soon.'_

"So that's a no, is it?" she finally said to the rest of the room.

She nodded to herself more than to anyone else when she got no response. Yaguarete was likely in charge upstairs and that would probably be of absolutely no help to her. She went back through the door, out of the records room and sat on the steps leading to the main floor. If the chief had wanted to tell her something important related to the case then she needed to know about soon since it might be urgent. She placed her head in her paws and sighed to herself and tried to think of what she could do. There was no way she was gonna call Bogo and ask him; especially since he was likely sleeping and would probably tear her a new one if she interrupted that. Besides, he needed to the sleep after all the hours he'd put into this case; not that she couldn't do with a nice rest as well, but she had to come down to the station the instant she found some of her items missing.

She let out a depressed sigh and decided that she should stay and work the case with what she had while she was there plus get some of her formal paperwork done to boot. She stood from her seat and was just about to head back up the steps when she heard some laughing and moaning echoing down the corridor from another hallway. The landing of the stair split in two directions—one off to the left which led to the records room and another off to the right which led to the operating room and holding cells for criminals. As she peered down the corridor, she heard the sounds of someone moaning in pain mixed with laughing voices. The sounds came closer until she saw two officers, Rhinowitz and his partner Coal, dragging what appeared to be a severely beaten fox to the holding cells. She sighed to herself and slowly made to follow.

_'Just another day in Zootopia . . . .'_

-.-.-.-

He didn't know where they were taking him. When he awoke he was in a daze but tried to make sense of his surroundings as he was dragged along by the shoulders. His gaze darting about, bleary eyed and frightened, he made to look around. He was still muzzled and the sudden desire to run or fight galvanised his senses and he redoubled his efforts to take in things around him and figure out where he was. He found to his momentary relief that he was, in fact, in the ZPD. He knew that he was somewhere near the records office when noticed his captors passed by the hall that led there. He finally turned his eyes straight ahead to see that they were taking him to a room he knew to be a holding cell. When they opened the door, though, he found himself looking instead at what appeared to be an operating room. Someone flicked on the lights and he could see what looked like an adjustable gurney with straps on it. It was situated in the middle of the room on a mount made of plastic or metal and bolted to the floor. As they brought him forward he renewed his struggle to escape.

"Looks like he's got some of his fight back," said the one called Coal, who then turned and punched him in the stomach. Nick grunted and bent forward and tried to regain his composure but failed when he was brained from behind by the massive rhino. Nick fought to stay conscious and within seconds found himself on his back and being strapped to the gurney. Its incline was adjustable and the arms of the gurney could be separated and adjusted as well—with his arms strapped to it. The gurney was manoeuvred so that Nick was in a nearly-standing position. The arms of the gurney, to which his own were strapped, were brought forward. He heard behind him something being wheeled around. When he looked to his right he saw it was a series of tools whose purpose he didn't want to know.

"You have finer paws," said Rhinowitz to someone he couldn't see.

Nick heard the scraping of something to his left and a moment later a gopher popped into view. Nick assumed it must have been a ladder or some other kind of stool or step that he had heard.

"Off the books, you said?" The gopher appeared to be talking to the rhino but it was the koala who answered.

"You know how Chief likes to have a low number of these incidents," said Coal.

"Right then," said the gopher as he adjusted his spectacles.

Nick was terrified as the rhino came back into view—terror which quickly became horror as he saw the rhino retrieve a scalpel from the other side of the gurney. Nick flailed and tried to break free of his restraints, screaming as loudly as he could against the muzzle as sheer panic took him.

 _'This can't be happening! This can't be happening! This can't be happening!'_ he screamed in his head. He was terrified of what was coming next and he was breathing heavily, his blood was pounding in his skull, and he was certain at any moment he was going to die of fear—if they didn't kill him first.

The rhino grinned and brought the scalpel close to Nick's throat. Nick moved his head away, extending his neck out of instinct—straining as he struggled ever more for freedom. He let out several long muffled screams as he felt the cold metal brush through his fur and lightly scrape the skin on his neck—not hard enough to draw blood or even scratch him, but being in such a helpless position had him to the point where he was nearly losing his reason.

"Do you have any idea what we do to sly savages like you?" said Rhinowitz

Nick turned to look at him as the scalpel was withdrawn, his heart beating nearly out of his chest. Nick was totally and completely surprised when a powerful electrical shock tore through his body from behind. He threw his head back and screamed as loudly as he could in his throat. The shock was repeated three times more, each time longer than the last. He closed his eyes and started wheezing as the pain began to subside.

"Think he gets it yet?" asked the koala, smiling brightly.

"These fuckers wanna kill us," started the rhino. "I don't think there's any teaching them at all, but I sure as hell wanna keep on trying." His grin was maniacal.

Coal let out a bark of laughter which ended abruptly when he stared at Nick intently. Nick, whose head had fallen forward and whose breaths were thin and raspy, was yanked up by the rhino by the scruff of his neck. The two other officers who'd been with them had gone—there were only Nick, the Gopher, the Rhino, and the koala. "You savages ran the world, killing us prey left and right. That's not something many of us forgot. You think it's fun to chase after and scare something for food? You think it feels good to be eaten alive?"

Nick made no answer—not that he could have anyway. Nick couldn't believe the rational. They were going to kill him for things that took place thousands of years ago?! He had lost the ability to struggle and his head was forced up again by the rhino.

"So how about we begin," began the gopher, drawing Nick's attention, "with a little declawing?"

At this, Nick reached his breaking point. He had _seriously_ reached his fucking breaking point! Tears started rolling down his face as he saw Rhinowitz hand the gopher the scalpel. He saw and felt the gopher draw his pinkie finger out. Nick closed his eyes tightly. He had lost the will to fight. Dread filled his senses and his tears poured more readily as he felt the sharp edge start to press into the flesh of his finger . . .

"Don't you think he's had enough?" came a new voice.

Nicks eyes flashed open. He didn't dare move. Didn't dare breathe.

_'Carrots!'_

Rhinowitz turned away from him to the doorway.

_Judy! He needed to see Judy!_

"You think so?" asked Rhinowitz. "You know he tried to rape a beaver who was out for a walk with her family this morning."

"Did he?" replied Judy's voice. "Take off the muzzle; let me see him."

"Look we was hopin' t' wrap this up, quick! Plus we had it that he might be a feral. He's a real fucking savage, Sarge!"

"Too fucking bad! You guys got my ass in trouble the last time you pulled this kinda' shit! I've had to cover for you too many fucking times and if I have to cover for you one more fucking time I swear to fucking God _I'm_ the _only_ savage you're gonna need to be afraid of and I don't have to wear a collar. Now I'll say this to you slowly so that maybe you can get it through your thick skull: Get out of my fucking way and unmuzzle the fucking fox!"

Rhinowitz stepped back. Reluctantly and begrudgingly, he turned around and undid the muzzle.

The instant it was off, Nick started screaming, crying out loudly, "Carrots! Carrots your here! Carrots, what the hell is going on?!" His mind and his emotions had been swinging like a pendulum between two extremes of terror and relief and it was wreaking havoc on his psyche. "Judy! Judy! Help! Please help me!" He was _begging_ her with everything he had, tears rolling down his face freely, sobbing as horror, fear, anguish, and relief boiled over into a cocktail of emotional outpouring. His relief was short-lived, however, at the next exchange.

"You know this guy?" questioned the rhino menacingly.

"Are you out of your fucking mind?!" shouted Hopps in return. "Like I know a vile fox from a hole in the wall."

The three others present laughed loudly.

"Don't worry!" laughed the rhino as he wiped a tear from his eye, "No one would ever accuse you of being sentimental!" His laughter subsided.

"Perish the thought!" she said, cruelly. "I'd kill myself if I were its mother. It's probably been stealing since it could crawl."

Nick tilted his head up and stared at the ceiling, his heart positively breaking. He just wanted to die. There was absolutely nothing left for him. It had to have been a dream, he concluded. All of it! His life with Judy, the thought that he could have a mate, the aspiration of someday being a father, being able to make an honest living, having decent friends—all of it! The whole thing was a lie—an illusion. _'There's always a hammer,'_ he reminded himself. Last night he had contemplated the fearful notion that the powers that be were just waiting for things to go well just to snatch it away.

He must have dreamt it all up, he decided. He must have faced years of this torture and his mind must have snapped at some point and conjured a reality where life was beautiful. He had reached the age of thirty-three living his life as a deviant, had a crack-up, and imagined that he was living far off somewhere in a better life because nothing he had experienced so far led him to conclude anything but the reality facing him—this was his life. He saw before him a life where predators were now actively hunted. He knew that if this were happening to him that this must have happened to predators before him. He knew that he was going to live the rest of his life alone, on the run, with no pack except Finnick.

 _'If he's even alive . . .'_ he thought depressively.

The rabbit before him regarded him with a heartless apathy. Her face hardened when she looked into his eyes. "Leave us," she said to the others in the room. The rhino turned tilted his head questioningly. "You heard me."

"Are you sure you don't want me to . . ." the gopher trailed off as he aimed the scalpel at Nick's claws.

"No, I'm _not_ sure. That's why I want you to stick around just outside. Actually, while you're gone, bring me a collar. We need to get one on this freak."

The gopher nodded and hopped down from his chair. He walked out the door followed by the koala and the rhino. The rhino closed the door behind him and left Sgt. Hopps alone with Nick.

He said nothing but only stared at the rabbit in front of him.

She began to pace around the room and seemed to be thinking to herself. He was still strapped, both of his arms and his torso, to the gurney. She seemed to come to a decision and he saw her tilt her head and nod. A last she spoke with the same lack of emotion or concern as before. "Did you try to rape a beaver?"

Nick, who had been looking down, suddenly looked up at her angrily but said nothing.

"Did you?" she pressed.

Nicks anger and frustration led him to growl. " _No!_ " he said sharply, half growling.

She walked up to him unconcerned and, to Nicks surprise, caressed his cheek; but the fact that he had been beaten all over his face meant that there was a painful bite to her touch. "You need to be careful, savage. You could be dead soon." She removed her paw. Her face had remained impassive the whole time and he had felt no genuine emotion in her words; which is why it surprised him when she spoke next.

"I believe you, fox, against my better judgement. If I find you here again, though," and here she turned to face him, anger marring her features, "I'll declaw you myself!" she finished in an angry whisper. She seemed to calm, and her face went back to its natural scowling position. "So today, you get off with nothing but a warning."

 _'Is this for fucking real?!'_ thought Nick angrily. Fury surged through him as his pain and humiliation combined to form a dangerous admixture in his mind. _'_ Nothing _but a warning?! Is that what she said? Has she fucking seen me?! Has she seen the way they've beaten me?!'_

He swallowed his anger but not before another growl escaped his throat.

She regarded him coldly and it seemed to him that she could read his thoughts for she said, "Yeah, that's right. You heard me fucking right you fucking fox. This is _only_ a warning. Uppity savages like you who like to sass back and think that they can change things are only good for two things—adding to the amount of paperwork I have to fill out and lining the inside of my coats."

Nick's mouth dropped in shock. There's no way she was serious. There's no way an animal would wear the skin of another animal as a fucking coat!

_'Is she fucking crazy? Is everyone here a fucking psychopath?!'_

Oddly, he seemed to see her expression soften in reaction to the horrified reaction. "It's a figure of speech. We _don't_ actually do that here. But I need to say this to you because you genuinely don't seem to understand: Chompers die here in our custody everyday. _Every_ day. Now, I'm not a cruel rabbit—I don't especially enjoy the idea of killing—but that's the reality of life here. Preds have their place, prey have ours."

Before Nick could ask, the door opened as the gopher returned with a collar. It stepped up on his stool and fastened it around Nick's neck. The doctor proceeded to undo the straps of the gurney and released Nick who immediately collapsed onto the floor with a grunt; unmoving but breathing heavily.

"Anything else you need, Sarge?" asked the doctor.

"Nothing, now. You can go."

The doctor looked warily from Nick to Hopps before leaving and closing the door behind him.

"Why?" asked Nick brokenly, his voice trailing off as depression took him.

"Why what?" she said acerbically.

"If you don't like killing, then why . . . ? How can . . . you be a part of this?" His cheek was pressed against the cold linoleum floor which is what he was looking at, his face lacking any care or emotion.

"We all have to make sacrifices," she said dully. "Can you move?" she asked.

Nick shook his head no. He was surprised when she felt her arm around him; felt her lifting him and dragging him. He was not only surprised at the action because it appeared to help him but because, apparently, she had a level of upper body strength he didn't remember her having. But of course he didn't remember her, he reminded himself; it had been a dream.

Slowly they made their way out of the operating room, slowly made their way down the corridor and up the back stairs. They came out through a back exit at street level. They were behind the parking lot, now, and were facing a row of tenement buildings behind the ZPD. Hopps waited for the traffic to ebb before jaywalking and getting him across the street. Once they were on the side of the of the apartments, she helped him down a back alley and sat him down against a wall.

Nick's breathing was still raspy. There were gouts of dried blood all over his fur, matting it, and both his nose and lips were bloody. She knelt in front of him, grabbed his jaw in her paw, and made him look at her. "Whatever you do," she said intently, "do not move from this spot."

When Nick made no comment she spoke louder, squeezing his jaw and emphasised, "Whatever you do, do _not_ fucking move from this spot, _do you understand me_?!"

Nick choked back a sob but nodded enthusiastically, just wanting her to leave him alone.

"Just know," she warned, "you leave this place, I'll know. You leave this place . . . you die." She stood and began to walk away.

"Why do I have to stay here?" he asked, "Why not someplace else?" Not that he could move if he wanted to, anyway.

She looked over her shoulder. "This is where the trash goes." And then she was out of the alley and gone.

Nick stared at the brick wall of the building directly in front of him and then turned his gaze to the roof where he caught a glimpse of the morning sky. And then he started sobbing. He cried openly and wept profusely as the events and horrors of the day fell on him as heavily as the building across from him might have. And he couldn't stop. He collapsed to his side as his tears continued to flow, his body convulsing, as the darkness of his mind pulled him further and further down.

He was there for what seemed to him about fifteen or twenty minutes when a van slowly pulled up to him. He had fallen into a shallow sleep from grief and at the sound of an approaching vehicle, his eyes flashed open and he tried to move but cried out in pain. He heard someone get out of the vehicle and heard a sliding door open.

"Holy fuck!" he heard one voice shout, "What the fuck did they do to this one?!"

Another voice, "Holy shit! Check 'im—does he have his claws?"

Nick felt a paw grab his. He let out a feeble growl but let out a bark of pain when the collar sent him a painful shock. He felt himself being gathered up and wanted to fight but couldn't. He tried to mentally fortify himself, unsure of what was happening in his foggy half-wakened state. He was surprised, therefore, when he felt himself gently laid down on a mattress in the back of a van whose seats had been taken out. Someone sat next to him—the first voice, a male's he'd heard, who started softly trying to patch him up. He heard voice number two say something to voice one. The van started and they began moving; to where, he didn't know. Nick looked to his side and saw himself in the glass of a window. He couldn't even recognise himself, his face was so cut up and swollen! He bent his ears back and let out an involuntary whine.

"There there," said voice one, "This happens to all of us at some point or other, though it looks like you got the worst of it. Was it the ZPD?"

Nick nodded softly.

"Yeah, they're bastards. Who put you in the alley?"

Nick didn't want to answer—didn't want to say, feeling somehow that voicing it out loud would make it real . . .

"Who did this?" asked the voice again.

"Judy" replied Nick, "Sergeant Judy Hopps. She told me not to move from that spot!" He was suddenly terrified again. "She said she'd know . . . she said . . . !"

The voice sounded incredulous now, "She did all this?"

Nick shook his head no and weakly said, "Alley."

The voice seemed to understand.

"Said she was taking out the trash," finished Nick.

"That fucking bitch," said voice one. "That fucking bitch. You gotta seriously watch out for 'er: She's the worst one on the force. She's nailed more preds than anyone."

Nick nodded. The chatter continued but it was nothing to which he cared to pay any attention. He fell into a foggy dream where he saw his sweet Judy, Carrots, regarding him with the devotion he'd imagined shining in her eyes last night. It was a poison to him now that burnt his heart.

As voice one continued ministering to him and patching him up, Nick closed his eyes and cried himself to sleep.

-.-.-.-

Sgt. Hopps finished the phone call she'd made when she got back to the basement, exhausted from having to practically carry the fox. She'd used the phone in the operating room with the door closed.

 _'No telling what kind of tricks those assholes might pull,'_ she said to herself as she opened the door and went out into the hallway. She looked down the hall toward the records room before going back into the operating room and cleaning up what she could. She left the rest for the janitor and left the room. She hummed as she walked down the corridor then down into hall toward records as she made her way to the stairs. As she came closer she saw a long line of chompers staring at her menacingly as she walked by. She came around the bend and saw a lion and a wolf blocking her way up.

She looked up at the wolf. "Yes, Garou?" she asked. Her shoulders fell, thoroughly unimpressed with the display.

"Where's the fox?" he asked.

"Gone," she replied flatly.

"Where's the fox?" he asked again with a bit more anger in his tone.

"I threw him out with the trash," she smirked.

The wolf growled but was censured by a shock to his neck.

"And bear in mind," she began sharply, "that the same can happen to you. You don't get special treatment just 'cause you work here. If it were up to me you'd all be outta here. Now! My guess is that most of you are here because you have to work off your sentences, am I right? If things are that shitty for you here, just hand us your claws and maybe we won't pull your teeth while we're at it."

Some of those who were standing behind her had backed away and flattened their ears; the wolf, on the other paw, stood his ground as did the lion.

"There will be a day," began the wolf dangerously as he leant down to Judy's height, "when I won't have this collar on. We'll see how brave you are then."

"There will also be a day," she returned, in a deceptively quiet tone, "when I might not have to worry about whether or not I kill someone. It may also be that that day is coming soon, and _very_ soon." Her tone of voice wasn't haughty, nor pretentious. She spoke as easily as discussing the weather. But now her face darkened and her tone took on a decidedly menacing edge. "The Razorbacks" she continued, "are an excellent squad. As it so happens, I've been invited to join them. I've been thinking it over so far; but the more I see savages like you, pretending like you somehow matter, well—it makes me long for a _cull_."

A shudder went through the assembly and several of the crowd sucked in air through their teeth. No one dared to move. The wolf only looked down at her in shock. She moved forward and both the lion and the wolf parted to let her through.

"So just keep in mind," she said over her shoulder as she went up the stairs, "if anything happens to me or to anyone else, that's the _end_ of preds in Zootopia. I have it on good authority that Mayor Pricilla is _begging_ for a reason to do it."

They stood there like pillars as they heard her go up the second flight and through the door to the main level. For several moments after she was gone they could only stand there, shoulders slumped. Finally, they all began shuffling, one by one, back into the grey-painted records room.

-.-.-.-

In a large office furnished lavishly with paintings and bookcases, a pig was sitting at a large desk in front of an enormous window that gave the best view of Downtown. On the desk, among other things, were stacked official-looking papers, a phone, and several personal knickknacks along with a framed photo of a smiling family of pigs. She was looking over paperwork, pausing occasionally to sip from a coffee cup, when she was interrupted by the phone as it started ringing.

She picked it up. "Hello?"

"It's me. Just wanted to give you an update: We just got a hit on one of the tracking collars. A red fox species, name unknown. Should we follow it?"

"Don't follow it, no, but keep it carefully watched—with the new trackers there's no need to waste the energy. See where it goes; it's too early to put feet on the ground."

"Will do. Anything else?"

"Yeah: Update me at five. That should be good. Bogo called me earlier and told me that Hopps was on it. I think we should have everything we need in place by then but we can't do anything till the sergeant gets back to us."

"Understood. I'll give you a call at five. If plans change, we're gonna need an update, though."

"Sure thing! But I think we'll have everything we need either way by then."

"Alright. Take care!"

"You too! We'll be in touch." The pig hung up the phone and smiled to herself. With any luck, it would only be a matter of hours before everything was ready.

 _'It's barely past eight and already everything seems to be falling into place.'_ She smiled to herself and went back to her paperwork, humming cheerily.


	4. The Other Side

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Judy explores Happy Town, getting a chance to see how the other side lives. She finds herself in more trouble than she bargained for and strains to keep some semblance of her composure in the midst of an unfamiliar territory. In the meantime, the clock is winding down the seconds as the mayor aims to put her sinister plot, whatever it may be, into motion.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Special Acknowledgement: First and foremost I would like to thank Soildier for his/her help in editing this chapter and taking on the role as my proofreader. I am indebted to you for the time you've taken to read through my work.
> 
> Author's Note: Not much to say about this chapter except that I had a lot of fun structuring it and writing it. I hope that those who read it will find it to their liking. If not, that's okay too: to each his own. And of course, any and all criticisms are welcome
> 
> To those who've enjoyed my story and encourage me I would like to offer a sincere "Thanks!" I hope that my writing continues to be worthy of your notice. I extend to you all, as well, the invitation to contact me here if there's something that needs clarifying—anyplace where I may have messed up.
> 
> As I stated before, I welcome any and all criticism pertaining to the story. If I miss a bit of grammar here or there let me know so I can fix it. If there's something that strikes you a mistake or an error let me know so that I can fix that, too; and yes, I do fix mistakes that are pointed out to me. Speaking from personal experience, nothing can take me out of a story more than a misspelt word or a grammatical mistake—especially if they're too common. Any other comments, questions, or concerns? Feel free to PM me.
> 
> Disclaimer: This is a work of fanfiction and has no claim whatsoever on the characters of Nick Wilde and Judy Hopps who are the sole property of The Walt Disney Company. In no way have I sought money, monetary value, nor profit of any kind for the writing of this story.
> 
> Content Advisory: There is a part of this chapter that is Not Safe For Work—There is a sex scene in this chapter that you can skip past though there is some expositional dialogue almost immediately following it. Pick through it as you will if it's not quite to your liking.

* * *

  
Judy turned got off the bridge and made a right into the borough. The first thing she noticed was a heavily graffitied sign that read, "Welcome to Happy Town." She had just finished crossing the western inlet.

"Now entering Happy Town," came the voice from her phone. When she stopped at the following red light she took a moment to silence the GPS, deciding to drive around a bit to get a sense of the city.

Happy Town, of course, hadn't existed as far as she knew until a few hours ago and she was curious about it—especially since she learned that basically all the predators in Zootopia lived here. The welcome sign was mounted on a billboard covered with vines and had what appeared to be paint and other things smeared on it. As she looked around she saw that the city was tightly packed. It was similar to the peninsula but differed in that there were no wide open spaces at all. Nature and environment had in no way been integrated into the infrastructure. She had absolutely no idea how the animals who lived here were able to survive. A city built of only concrete and twisted metal lay before her and it was hideous: Everyone here was wearing a collar; many buildings appeared dilapidated or at least uncared for; the sidewalks and gutters were littered with bottles and trash. It was a sad scene.

There was nothing attractive about the area—Nothing to attract tourists, no bright colours. Drab. As she drove about, some animals spied her wearily which made her a tad uneasy. After about twenty minutes getting the feel for the area she came to the conclusion that it was a dump. There was no wealth of any kind in this place. It had tenement buildings lining many of the streets and stacked together as tightly as sardines.

The terrain of Happy Town was variable. As she was crossing the bridge she had seen several abandoned warehouses dotting the coast with green, rolling mountains within a few hundred feet of the shore. Several corniches wound their way up the mountains and hills allowing businesses and residential areas to scale up the one way and then down another. Several of the beaches were private owing to the way the cliffs would jut out onto the sand with the result that many of the factories built in such an area were accessible only through a shaft of some kind; likely an elevator, thought Judy, or a stairwell. The shafts led to buildings on the edge of the corniche roads with what appeared to be an office structure up top which acted as an official-looking front for the business and as housing for the shaft entrance.

It was probable that the majority were abandoned fishing and shipping companies; she noticed, however, smokestacks on some of them which looked odd to her since smoke-producing factories had been banned for ages. Come to think of it, as she looked about she noticed that for as green as the hills and mountains were, there was a fog clouding the air. A sort of smoke-fog.

_'Smog? Is that a word?'_

She drove on and only got more and more depressed as she went. There were the occasional adults or children whom she saw begging for change and she cringed as the conditions in which these mammals were living got to her.

She reached down to her phone and enabled the voice directions again, deciding that it would be best to simply head straight to the clinic. After a few minutes she got onto a road that wound its way up the side of a slope. The air was clearer, it seemed to her, as she got higher; and the houses and buildings which she saw on either side of the narrow road struck her as quaint. The greenery was beautiful and it seemed to her that some of the affected climates of the rainforest and canal districts must also be influencing the air here. It wasn't too much longer, the clock on the dashboard read seven minutes past eight, before she came upon a modestly-sized red-roofed building.

 _SPEEDY CARE_  
WALK-IN CLINIC

_'That's the place!'_

It was on her right, toward the cliff and the waterfront down below. Judy noticed a line of predators that seemed to go around the building as she slowed by. Other animals who weren't in line, she noticed, were standing near their cars—waiting for their turn—so as not to overwhelm the queue and have it run into the street. As she pulled into the parking lot and began to look for a spot, she noticed several animals look at her quizzically; some others, with alarm; and yet still others, with fear—and they ran off to tell others in the line. She went around the bend to the back of the building to see whether there were any spot there that she could take. She found an empty one at the edge of the cliff and took it. There was a sidewalk ahead of her and a railing covered in vines with tall, untended grass growing at the base.

She got out of her car and walked to the edge slowly. She leant on the rusted iron rails and looked out at the beautiful water. Across the inlet, she could barely make out a few islands dotting the waters which she knew were part of the canal district in the northeast of Animalia. She sighed sadly and wished she could have been here with Nick. She moved her eyes downward to try to see what was on the shore. Since the shore and the water were so close together along with the edge of the cliff she had some trouble seeing exactly what was there but she could make out a few apparently-empty warehouses down below. It wasn't that the shore was that far below her, it was merely that the angle at which things were situated made it difficult to see what exactly it was. All she could really make out were the roofs of some buildings that formed a line to her right, south of her.

It was still only seven fifty in the morning. Now that she had gotten out of the oppressive though affluent Animalia district and the smog sweltering lower part of Happy Town she could appreciate the way the sunlight danced on the surface of the water; gilding it and making it look fresh and beautiful. She heard as she looked out, several cars around her quickly packing up and driving away. She sucked in one more breath of fresh air before turning and walking toward the building; watching as several cars drove off as she did so.

She really had no idea what she was going to say or do if she got to see Nick. Would he remember her? Likely not. Neither Clawhauser nor Bogo knew who she _really_ was. It was all but certain that if she met Nick he wouldn't know who she was either. If she had met him in this life she was certain that he would assume that she was still whoever she had been, and that was a problem because she really had no idea who she was supposed to be in this world. If Nick didn't remember her it would be unsurprising, but it still made her heart hurt. She was so fundamentally lonely she didn't know what to do with herself except continue repeating her mantra: _Survive!_

As she walked around to the front of the clinic she noticed that the line had disappeared. She opened the door and saw a line of animals who apparently hadn't gotten the message. When a few turned to look at her, many immediately flattened their ears and began whispering in quiet tones that eventually became a quiet cacophony of voices. She was unable to discern a single thread of conversation clearly though she was able to make out the phrases, "Sergeant Hopps," and, "Run," and, ". . . think she knows?" Judy had never seen a room clear so quickly: In a matter of seconds, the whole building seemed to be empty leaving only her and a very familiar-looking fox wearing a white lab coat, a stethoscope draped across the back of his neck, standing at what appeared to be a reception counter.

He cocked an eyebrow at her. "Good morning officer. Is there some reason you felt the need to harass my customers? I mean, 'clients'?" he spoke coolly and with a barely-concealed contempt as he leant forward on the counter.

"I don't believe I was actually harassing anyone," she said, somewhat defensively. "I'm here for one reason—maybe a few more but we'll cross that bridge when we come to it."

"I'm all ears, Officer Wabbit."

The cocky grin he gave her when he smiled nearly choked her with emotion. In spite of the obvious scars on his face he was the same familiar fox she remembered. It felt so intimate and so at homey that she had to pinch herself to remind herself that she had to probe carefully.

"Uh . . . well, Mr. Wilde," she began, slightly disarmed "I was just, uh . . . ."

_'Cheese and Crackers, Judy; you better think of something to say, quick!'_

"What . . . do you do here?" She was seriously considering slapping herself at this point.

He simply stared at her blankly. "I'm a doctor. I run an establishment where we treat animals with boo-boos."

_'Right. Walked into that one, Jude.'_

"Do you have a degree?"

"Yup!" he said brightly, pointing at a framed certificate on the wall. "I'm certified and everything."

"Hmm . . . I'm just wondering because if you practice medicine on someone without a license you could really hurt someone. Are you certified to treat all animals?"

"Why yes," he began easily, "I could even treat you. If you wanted." What Judy would normally have taken to be flirting from Nick on any other day held a dark edge to it, now.

She started around the side of the counter to take a closer look at the degree.

"You can't come back here," started Nick as he blocked her path, "confidentiality and all that. I'm sure you understand."

Judy nodded but looked over his shoulder to see the certificate. It had a clear insignia indicating that it was nothing much more than a piece of paper printed off the internet.

"And I suppose," she began as she turned her eyes back to Wilde, "that diplomas come with web addresses printed on them, now?"

Wilde's face darkened for a moment before his easy-going mask came back up. "Did you want something officer?"

"It's sergeant. Apparently. And yes, I did." She backed away as Wilde came forward. She could pick up that he meant to be intimidating but she knew him too well to know that he would ever be violent. Or at least, she _hoped_ she still knew him well enough.

"Well?" he asked.

There was no easy way to ask this question; and, given the reactions of the several animals whom she'd seen, she knew that it was bound to get a response out of him; but she had to ask it. She sucked in breath and bit the bullet. "Is there any reason why Chief Bogo would ask me to bring you in?"

His face fell and the colour drained from his ears as he slowly began to step around her. "You tell me . . ." he trailed off with a menacing bite.

"Might it have anything to do with a false medical licence?"

Wilde merely smirked down at her, a dark glint in his eyes.

"And might that also mean," she continued "that if this is a fake doctor's office, that this is the front for some illegal operation? Why else have a false license? If you're not a doctor, what were those animals lining up for?"

She stopped perusing her thread of questions out loud as she realised that it might get her into trouble; because the more she followed this line of reasoning the more she realised things didn't make sense. Wilde wasn't a doctor. Even if that license passed for legal here, there was no way Wilde was a competent clinician. Now, she reasoned, there had been a long line of animals gathered outside and in the lobby; which meant that if Wilde weren't a real or competent doctor they must have been visiting him for something else—something extraordinarily popular. What could it be? She puzzled for a second before remembering seeing the private beaches that were cut off from the rest of the coast. Businesses and warehouses wanting access to the roads used what appeared to be either a stairwell or an elevator shaft to access the warehouses beneath the corniches. She had noticed when looking out at the water that this was one such beach _and_ she had seen the warehouses below. She wasn't certain, but she had a hunch that there was a way down to the beach from this building and that somehow Wilde was running his real business from there.

She kept these things absolutely to herself as she started to get a sense that maybe that's where the animals were heading. Many of them had brought their children along so she figured it couldn't be a drug-related business or particularly harmful. Could it?

"That's confidential," he smirked. Wilde had to get rid of her, but how? He had no way of doing that easily. The second he'd seen a cop enter he knew he was as good as dead. _'Maybe not!'_ Not immediately, anyway. He wondered about maybe killing her. Mr. Big would help him out with that. He just had to keep her talking. He hadn't worked out the details in his mind but he could almost see the wheels turning in this bunny's brain, and he saw the moment realisation dawned in her face.

The instant she looked up at him he _knew_ that she knew. If he let her go back to the ZPD station at all he'd be taken in and put into one of those torture machines and so would every chomper who'd ever walked through his doors. To her credit, he noticed, she was trying very hard not to let on that she had figured out just enough to put him away. _'Sly bunny,'_ he thought to himself.

"I understand, and I'm sorry for prying," she replied. She wanted to let her original line of questioning go for the moment as now she wanted to see if she could tease out _Wilde's_ character.

"Is there any reason you can think of why I shouldn't bring you in?" she asked in a lightly quizzical tone.

It was disarming. His face fell and his darker thoughts vanished. In all of his life he had _never_ been asked that by a cop. Never had there ever been any implication, except to mock him, that he might be allowed to go. Her question seemed to be begging him for a reason and he found her sincere. He didn't have the luxury of letting himself buy it, though. She knew he was running an illegal operation; she must have figured out _something_ because he knew that look in someone's eyes when two and two came together. He couldn't let her leave and that was the end of it. He couldn't trust her not to turn him in.

He walked to the front door, pulled out a key, and locked it—putting the closed sign up in the window.

"You mind telling me what you're doing?" she asked.

"Keeping other visitors out. No business is coming in here today with you here," he lied. "Why don't you tell me how much you know?" he asked as he turned to her, pointedly blocking the door.

 _'Well, Crackers!'_ This had taken an unfortunate turn, she thought.

With no choice but to lay all her cards out on the table, she started: "Well, I know that you're not a doctor—not a competent one, anyway, since that takes years of training. I also know that you have a series of structures down below on the riverside."

Wilde sucked in breath.

"I think—in fact I know—that there's got to be a way to access it from up here. My guess is that you're probably running something illegal in those warehouses; and whatever it is, it's soundproofed or I would have heard it." She gestured to her ears. "This clinic is a front for something else but I don't know what exactly. The elevator shaft leading there is probably just round the bend of the reception area and down that hallway."

Wilde just started at her blankly. He was fucked. _'Or am I? C'mon, Nick, think!'_

"So . . . do I get a prize?" she asked cheerily.

The look she saw in Wilde's face let her know that things were bad. He advanced on her slowly as he tried to think of what he could do. Killing her would be no good after all, he realised, since there were animals at the ZPD who knew this was her last destination.

' _Not that I_ could _kill her with this collar on!'_

He had to leverage her somehow, but he didn't know what to do. Kidnapping wouldn't work either for the same reason—people would know this is where she came last. And he knew with the tensions that had been growing in the city for ages now that either this bunny's death or her kidnapping could be the fuse lighting the powder keg. It would be an all-out war. If prey animals found out about this place—what he was really doing—animals would die here, too. Prey animals couldn't stand for predators being free for even a minute. He was sure that torture would follow. But he had seen sincerity in her eyes. Could he rely on that?

 _'Don't marry that idea just yet'_ he told himself, _'probe a little further.'_

"What could I tell you about my activities here that would convince you to leave things here alone?" he said at last, not yet daring to hope.

"Tell me that what you're doing here isn't hurting anyone—no drugs; no murder and so on," she said earnestly.

Wilde shook his head no. "Nothing like that."

"Well, could you ela-"

She was cut off when she heard a clanking sound resonate from down the hall. Judy turned to look down the corridor but couldn't see around the bend well enough to discern what had made the noise. She looked back at Wilde as a nervous and somewhat frightened expression covered his face. He looked at her and she could see from the way he regarded her that he was about to reach out and stop her from running down the hall. She turned and with a speed born of her ancestors ran down the hall with Wilde in quick pursuit.

"Oh, no, no, no, no no!" shouted Wilde as he ran after; but in spite of his warnings the laughter of a child was heard echoing down the corridor and a panther cub came running with a balloon in hand. It was too late, Wilde realised. Judy scooped up the child in her arms and brought it close. She looked over the child's shoulder and saw his parents hurrying down the hall after him. The couple seemed to freeze when they saw her holding their cub.

"Is this one yours?" Judy called out playfully. She held the child up to get a look at him. That was when she realised he wasn't wearing a collar. She put the seemingly-frightened kid on the ground and watched him scamper back to his parents as they just stood there. Wilde was at a loss.

 _'Well, what the hell am I gonna do now?!'_ he mentally shouted.

He reached for her but she stepped out of arm's length when she recognised the male.

"Mr. Manchas! Is that you?" she asked familiarly.

The family stood petrified. She noticed that neither of the parents had their collars on, either.

She turned to Wilde, "Hey, how come they're not wearing . . . ?" She trailed off as she got a sense of what was going on: preds were somehow removing their collars down in the abandoned factories.

 _'So they can have a taste of freedom,'_ she realised sadly.

She didn't understand how they were able to remove their collars without the shock that was supposed to accompany their removal, but that was beside the point—she now totally and completely understood why Bogo wanted Wilde brought in. She doubted Bogo was aware of the full breadth of Wilde's activities but it was clear now that such a thing as being able to harmlessly remove collars would attract big business. Predators would be flocking from all over to come and have their collars removed for a day. The predators outside near their cars and those lined up outside the office would have attracted attention, and given that preds were held in low esteem here, it was likely that someone had taken notice and brought it to the attention of the department at which point Bogo would have wanted someone to investigate. But why? For all Bogo knew, this establishment was just a clinic run by a fox named Nick Wilde. But the email, she remembered, had said that the order hadn't come from him directly but seemed to suggest that someone else was calling the shots, but who?

As Judy's mind worked to process the information; Wilde, on the other paw, was at a total loss as to what he should do. As far as he was concerned there was no way an officer with the ZPD were just going to ignore something like this. He was about to speak when the door to the office banged. The sound of the bolt unlocking was heard and, to his surprise, he saw Clawhauser walk through the door.

 _'Must be someone that works here,'_ thought Judy. At least she hopped it was someone who worked here. She couldn't see around the bend in the hall to know who it was, which was why she was surprised to hear the voice that reached her ears.

"Nick, we got a problem," said Clawhauser as he turned and locked back up. He started down the hallway. "We got . . ." He trailed off the instant he saw Wilde, Judy, and the collarless Manchas family standing there.

"Oh shit. Oh, _shit_! Nick, we can't let her leave!" exclaimed Clawhauser.

"What? Why?" asked Wilde.

"She'll turn us in! Nick, she could have us all tortured!"

"If we kill her it could be the end of Happy Town and every pred in Animalia!" shouted Wilde. "It would mean war; and we're not ready yet."

"I would enjoy not dying, please!" Judy interjected timidly.

Clawhauser scowled at her and continued as though she hadn't spoken. "Nick that war has already started. It started the moment she came in here!"

"She might not tell anyone, though. We have to hope for that! She said she was willing to work with us. Even if she does tell . . . even then, we might be able to get away and warn most of the animals here! We just close this place down and burn everything!" said Wilde. He'd really hate to have to start killing mammals _now_ ; especially when he'd managed so well without having to resort to murder before.

"Nick it won't help! We can't let her go!" said Clawhauser desperately.

"The cops in this town find her dead or kidnapped it'll throw everything into chaos! We _have_ to let her go! _Don't you get it!_ "

"No, Nick," began Clawhauser, terrified and sad, "either way the war has just started. There's no way she'll let us go."

Wilde sighed. "We have to ho-"

"Look at her! Fuck, Nick! _Look_ at her! Don't you even _recognise_ her?!" He was shouting at Wilde, now, in disbelief. He grabbed his neck in pain as his tame collar went off again and again in response to his excitement.

Wilde turned to regard Judy questioningly. He'd never seen this rabbit before in his life.

"She's Judy Hopps!" shouted Clawhauser in exasperation and fear as he willed Wilde to understand the severity of the situation.

It were as though all the air had suddenly been sucked out of the room.

 _'Well, shit,'_ she thought.

Judy felt an impending sense of doom assault her from every corner of the room; she heard Mr. Manchas begin to advance behind her slowly so as not to ignite the situation. Wilde's face had been a cornucopia of emotion reflecting fear, horror, anger, and rage in quick succession. She was outnumbered by animals who were afraid that letting her go would lead to the deaths of hundreds if not thousands. They'd be desperate to keep her there and any sudden moves on her part could lead to her getting hurt.

Wilde, for his part, had just had his personal mantra reconfirmed: _Trust no one._ And to think, he'd been considering letting her go! It was all over now either way, he figured; if he let her go, she'd go back to the ZPD and tell them everything she knew. There was no doubt now. And knowing who she was, she would probably bring down the maximum on them all. The war would start on her terms and those who shared her views; and the vastly outnumbered predators in Animalia would be wiped out in short order with Happy Town following quickly. The prejudiced animals in charge of the city had been waging a war of attrition against predators for a while, now. The more he thought about it the more he concluded that if they kidnapped this bunny they could use her as a bargaining chip to slow things down. Or kill her and have the honour of taking down one of the most notorious persecutors of predators in the city _and_ have the distinction of drawing first blood. Either way, they'd have hours to prepare _something._ They could at least warn all the preds they could of what was coming.

With any luck, they could put off a fight for days. Maybe one. At least one. Hopefully _at least_ one!

Wilde wasn't the only one trying to discern his options, though:

 _'Survive, Judy!'_ the rabbit told herself as she played her own game of mental chess—The doors were locked, the three members of the Manchas family were collarless behind her but if anyone of their party were to engage her it would likely be Renato; and since she couldn't see his face to read his intentions she couldn't risk trying to escape past him and down the elevator shaft. Wilde and Clawhauser stood between her and the front exit so that was out, too.

 _'No chance of escape that way—even_ if _I had the key.'_

She could see Wilde had fight in his eyes and knew that if she made a move, shock collar or not, he would try to stop her before she got too far and likely would.

 _'Okay; so basically,'_ thought Judy quickly, her brain churning a mile a minute, _'you're in a hostage situation. In prison riot situations the best course of action is to lay down arms and not be a hero. Try to diffuse the situation and wait for back up. Animals in desperate situations are bound to act irrationally. I can't afford to do that; I need to survive! So what does that mean? What do I do?'_ She thought over what Wilde and Clawhauser had said about a war with prey animals in the city and knew that they'd been speaking in earnest. They truly believed that if they let her go they were all as good as dead. Clawhauser's terrified and pleading voice told her that much. As such, she knew she had to play this very carefully.

Judy spoke her next words very cautiously and slowly. "Okay, everybody just calm down," she raised her arms slowly and put her paws in the air. The tension was thick. "You got me."

Some of the stress seemed to immediately dissipate

"Renato," said Wilde a bit more calmly now though slightly shakey, calling Manchas by his first name, "I'm gonna need you to pat her down. Clawhauser, did she come here in a car?"

"Yeah she did," replied the cheetah.

"Were gonna need to move it at some point. That was great timing, by the way. How did you know she was here?"

"She got an email from Chief Bogo saying that she needed to take you in. Said it was coming from up top."

"Who's 'up top'?" asked Wilde, turning to Judy.

She said nothing.

"Let's get to the lower level; we need to get our collars off," said Wilde.

Renato had finished searching through her pockets and had pulled out her keys, her phone, and other effects and placed them on a gurney that was along the side of the hall.

"Wait!" started Clawhauser, "that black magnetic strip on her keychain! That can unlock collars."

Wilde came forward and took the keys from the panther, held the black strip to his collar and heard it unclick, falling from his neck. He caught it with his left paw and then turned back to Judy and growled.

"So," began Wilde, taking on a decidedly more threatening tone, "when Bogo said that his instructions were coming from 'up top' what did he mean by that?"

Judy let out a shaky sigh. "I don't know," she said calmly though internally she was trying to keep herself from flipping out.

"Excuse me!" interrupted Manchas somewhat heatedly, "Do you think you could do this away from my cub?"

Understanding dawned in Wilde's eyes and he nodded. "You and your wife should go. We're closing Wild Times for now. You need to gather the group and meet us all back here at four-ish. Maybe earlier. Around ten or so when we figure out what to do. If this is going to get as bad as I think it is we need as many people to know as soon as possible. We need to alert all the predators in Animalia, too. Start a text chain. Post nothing to social media—no emails, no nothing. Just phone messages and word of mouth. We need to keep this as quiet as we can. When the ZPD realise that she's missing and that this was the last place she was headed things are going to go from bad to worse real quick. We might be able to stave off a full investigation till tomorrow but let's not count on it. We need to get ready tonight. We'll have a meeting here. Get the word to Mr. Big as soon as you can. He might have some better ideas."

"What about her?" asked Manchas as he nodded down at Judy.

"Cuff 'er. Clawhauser and I will worry about the rest for now."

Judy placed her arms behind her back and felt Manchas draw the cuffs off her belt and shackle them. Wilde pocketed her phone and other belongings.

"Bet you wish you'd just stayed home," murmured Manchas as he tightened the cuffs.

"You have no idea. I wasn't even supposed to work today," she said as lightly as she could.

Manchas let her go, took her keys, then went over to Clawhauser and uncollared him.

"Is she telling the truth?" asked Wilde to Clawhauser. "I mean, about not knowing who 'up top' is?"

"I don't know. I read the email over her shoulder. She could know more. I'm sure she does."

Wilde turned to her but was still speaking to Clawhauser. "If we brought Mr. Big in on this, do you think he'd be able to get the truth from her?" The name dropping was clearly meant to frighten her.

"He might be able to," replied Clawhauser somewhat timidly.

Mrs. Manchas and her cub strode past Judy to reach her husband.

"Could you let us out?" asked the panther as his wife reached him.

"Sure; Nick, make sure she doesn't leave?" said Clawhauser.

While Clawhauser disappeared around the bend to let out the couple, Wilde stared down at Judy.

"You know you almost had me going," he started casually as he paced around her. "I was about to let you go. And in return . . . you would've brought the cops and had me killed and tortured and initiated a cull. So, why don't we start over: Why did you really come here? I mean _really_?"

Judy sighed. "I needed information."

"On?"

"I needed to know why the Chief wanted to bring you in."

"That's a crock. You know why. You _knew_ why the moment you walked in here!" He let out a growl. Judy shuddered but remained as steadfast as she could.

"I didn't, actually. If my only job was to bring you in then why didn't I arrest you the moment I walked in unless I wanted to find out more first?"

"Find out more about what? And how do I know that was your only job?"

"Clawhauser just said that he read the email over my shoulder! He told you exactly that!" she said desperately.

"Are you really trying to convince me that I _should_ let you go?"

Clawhauser returned at this point and snorted when he heard the question. "What's she saying?"

"Ben," began Wilde, "did you by any chance read the whole email?"

"Yeah," he replied.

"Was the only thing it asked her to do was bring me in?"

"Yeah. Just that and that it came from 'up top,'" he said.

Wilde nodded. "Well, at least you know something about honesty," he said to Judy as he snickered to himself. "You know I'm going to enjoy knowing that your worst nightmare is coming true. Just wait till you get down below."

He took her arm forcefully and led her to the elevator.

"You're taking her inside?" asked Clawhauser as he brought up the rear.

"In for a penny, in for a pound," replied Wilde. Clawhauser joined them as Wilde pulled open the large elevator gate. They all stepped in and Judy sucked in a deep breath. "Besides, we need to keep her someplace."

"Where are you taking me?" asked Judy as Wilde closed the gate.

"My office."

He pulled a lever to start the elevator going down.

"Can I just ask you something?" asked Wilde as the elevator started its way down.

Judy gave a slight nod.

"What is it that you have against us in the first place? I can't tell you the number of animals that have been disappeared or declawed at your paws and I just wonder why you chose this life."

Judy thought for a moment. She had no idea what her counterpart in this life had done. She didn't want to give an answer that would be considered a lie or obfuscation on her part, so she instead settled on a trick answer:

"I didn't choose this life; it chose me." She knew it was cliché. It also happened to be true.

Wilde smirked. "Way to double down," he said as he leant in close. "I can double down, too," he finished ominously.

Judy remained silent as Wilde and Clawhauser fell into idle chatter as they continued their descent.

-.-.-.-

Nick drifted in and out of sleep, his mind bobbing like a cork on the surface of the water between consciousness and unconsciousness. His dreams swirled around his brain and refused to settle. He would wake periodically and choke on the disillusionment of his present reality. His mind couldn't believe what he'd experienced and fought vehemently against what he had befallen him in the space of about an hour or so—he was beyond being able to tell the difference between fantasy and reality. He was in a world now whose rules were totally foreign to him. He felt as though he had amnesia and was, to a great or lesser extent, unaware of his surroundings.

The two wolves that had rescued him spoke quietly so as not to disturb their patient.

"So, what did Honey tell you, Fang?" asked the driver.

"Not much. Just the usual. That there was a pred in the alley. Needed immediate pickup."

"Lucky someone saw him."

"Yeah. It seemed like from what she said, though, that this guy was a stranger."

"How'd she figure that?"

"I'm not sure. Maybe it was the fact that he got himself beat up so bad."

"I dunno. That doesn't really say anything anymore. They're picking us up for anything now. Said they're afraid of all of us going feral at any moment."

"You don't believe the rumours then?"

"Not for a second. They're just coming up with some bullshit to lock us up. Already nearly everyone on my block has disappeared."

"So that's why you wanted to stay with me."

"It was only a matter of time before . . . before . . ." he trailed off as sadness and fear began to well up in him, cutting off his speech.

Fangmeyer nodded to himself, watching as his partner gripped the steering wheel, noting with a shudder the clawless fingers that tightened around it.

"Before they came for you, too," Fangmeyer finished for him.

It was an open secret on the peninsula that predators were being picked up for any reason, now; and very few were ever heard from again. There were theories that the animals captured were being tortured or held captive in some secret place that none of them could ever find. This heightened feeling of paranoia was exacerbated by recent news reports concerning an emerging epidemic of feral animals—predators specifically—spreading throughout the city. Though law enforcement was mum—because of course they were—there were some animals interviewed on the evening news, all of them prey, who shakily told stories of being attacked by wild animals.

 _'More propaganda,'_ thought Fangmeyer.

As far as he was concerned it was just an excuse to take preds off the street and hold them indefinitely without cause. Lately, tensions in the city had gotten really bad: An increase in violence and police brutality were being seen throughout the city. For a long time now, the prejudice had been getting steadily more open. New laws had been passed forbidding predators from congregating at all.

Long-time singer and glamour star Gazelle had recently come under fire for championing the rights of predators within the city. She was one of the very vocal few who were adamant that things change in the city. She openly performed with predators, too, to demonstrate that she was unafraid of the propagandists' warnings that predators could at any moment go feral.

Fangmeyer sighed as he thought about the hopeless situation facing predators in the city: Any crime in Zootopia that fell under the category of being a federal offense was adjudicated in a court presided over by a judge with a verdict to be rendered by a jury of one's peers. The caveat in that procedure was that it applied _only_ to prey animals while offences committed by predator animals were often adjudicated by a divisional court presided over by a panel of judges who often found the predator guilty—such that the conviction rate for a predator was nearly ninety-seven percent while the far-lower conviction rate for a prey animal was around seventy-seven percent.

Tales of forced confession, torture, threats against a suspect's family and so on were all tactics employed by the ZPD and its affiliates. All of those occuring with greater and greater frequency since the founding of the city to which both Fangmeyer and Wolford could attest.

Fangmeyer had found it increasingly harder to find work in the city as few businesses were willing to hire a predator; meantime, the prices in the city had gone up higher and higher. Eventually it had gotten too difficult to make ends meet and he moved to Happy Town which, although it had been relatively recently amalgamated into the city, remained a slum.

The divisions between prey and preds within the city had been sharpening more and more—and fear mongering by city officials had been increasing and ratcheting up tensions between the two sides so that now it appeared that no less than civil war or revolution would be able to overturn the power dynamics in the city.

It was to the point now where the police had had their authorities expanded to where many such disappearances and sequestrations of "criminal chompers" were done with no official paperwork so that there'd be no legal paper trail that lawyers would be able to follow up on. Prey spies that had been eager to work with predators to help things change had become, themselves, the subject of heavy investigation. Many such spies had recently disappeared, too.

It had become clear to many in Happy Town that pieces were being moved in to place and careful lines of attack were being drawn so that when the last straw fell, the trap would spring like a well-oiled machine. The daring attitude that the police as an arm of the city hall had taken on in recent months with greater ferocity was an indication to many that the powerful élite were preparing for all-out persecution.

 _'It'd be like going back to our savage hunting days,'_ thought Fangmeyer, _'but with us being the hunted.'_

All these things and more filled his mind as he tended the broken fox at whose side he knelt. He didn't know who this fox was but he was lucky to have been rescued from among the most painful tortures inflicted. The wolf looked down at his own clawless paws sadly before turning his eyes to the fox's right paw: The pinkie finger had a light tinge of blood beneath the claw. He had been about to endure the unthinkable and had fortunately had the process stopped before any lasting damage had been done.

He remember what the fox had implied—that somehow it was Sgt. Hopps who, though having left the fox to suffer in an alley, had been the one to interrupt the procedure. He thought back with revulsion to his own declawing—performed without anaesthesia. The infamous rabbit had been there, too, and had taken no measure at all to stop what was happening. He had screamed for what had seemed an eternity, begging for mercy, all to no avail.

His paw formed a fist as he thought back on the memory, renewing to himself the vow that he'd made then: To avenge himself on the ZPD and the city—The city that had taken his father and mother from him; the city that had mercilessly tortured and killed his friends. The city that had taken his cub from him. He snarled angrily and received an immediate shock from his collar, adding insult to injury.

 _'Just you wait. You'll have your chance,'_ he thought to himself.

Wolford looked back at his friend in the rear-view mirror. "Everything alright there?"

"Yeah, I'm good, just . . . just thinking."

"Hey, we're almost to Nick's place. We're taking the ferry this time."

"Good idea. We don't wanna be traced. Who's at the wheel?"

"Delgato."

Fangmeyer nodded. Wild Times would be the best place to hide. Nick had made a fortune off the city by finding every loophole he could and exploiting the hell out of it. Fortunately for them, it meant that they also had a place to help preds recuperate. Nearly all the preds in the city had had cause to be thankful, he thought, that Nick had had the foresight to have his business double as a hideout for preds on the run.

Some minutes later they had parked the van on the ferry and were beginning the crossing. Since there were a few animals with them, Delgato would make their stop the last. They'd managed to get his attention and alert him to the situation and their destination, explaining everything.

"So what do you think his story is?" asked Fangmeyer as he sat next to the fox, monitoring his condition.

"Dunno," replied Wolford. "Some of the guys I was with before Honey called me up were listening to the police scanner to see if there was anybody that might need a pick up. Someone said they heard something about a fox that had tried to assault a beaver."

"Like rape?"

"Something like that."

"That sounds like bullshit right out of the gate. What do you wanna bet it was something as simple as he said, 'Hello,' to her and the girl got a hair up her ass about it?"

"Probably. Was a similar thing for me, too," said Wolford. "Hey, by the way—looks like we're nearly there: did'ja call Nick?"

"No, I didn't. But he's probably busy running things up top. We should probably call Finnick."

"He working today?"

"Probably. Either way I think we should try him first. He usually handles this kind of stuff, anyway."

Wolford nodded, pulled out his cell and made the call. After a brief conversation he hung up and turned back to Fangmeyer.

"He said he's sending someone to set up Nick's side office."

"Where is it again?"

"Behind the roar-a-coaster; so it's going to be in the very back. It's the same one with the little side room in it."

"Yeah, I remember."

"You should: you were there."

"Yeah, but as a patient. Lucky Finnick had some good pain meds. Man, I was _out_ of it, like, the whole week."

Wolford grinned. "Don' I know it."

After a short time, the ferry finally reached its final destination. Before them lay a series of three interconnected warehouses founded securely on the shore close to the edge of the cliff wall behind it. The drab exterior of the structures belied the true freedom felt within their walls. Both Wolford and Fangmeyer smiled broadly as they drove off the ferry toward the edifices before them. They turned briefly and gave Delgato a salute as the skipper turned his ferry around. The boat sped up significantly to make up the time lost taking the detour as it made back for the Canal District.

As they drove up the docks, there was a giddy sense of anticipation. Every predator in Animalia and Happy Town felt the same feeling when approaching Wild Times: Freedom! It was a sense of hope and liberty that permeated the entire atmosphere near the place. After hours, when not functioning as an amusement park, it was a secret meeting ground for the predators of Zootopia where they both commiserated and consoled each other; it also served as a clandestine headquarters for the predator army whose operations had heretofore been secret so as not to tip off the political elite on the peninsula that there really were true cause to worry about an uprising.

Fangmeyer and Wolford went up the driveway and parked at the back of the building.

Fangmeyer did his best to lift the nearly-unconscious fox from his resting place and, with Wolford's help, was able to carry him in through the emergency exit which, as per Finnick's conversation with them, was left unlocked and propped open. The office behind the roar-a-coaster was easy to find. They managed to get through the chain-link gate to the area that was usually accessed only by maintenance personnel. They got into Nick's office where they found stacks of paper everywhere. Closed circuit monitors took up a large part of the wall on the right-hand side and displayed all corners of the park for both security and safety. Along the same wall at the far end of the room there was another door. Fangmeyer went ahead to open it as Wolford awkwardly dragged the fox along with him. Fangmeyer would have laughed if the poor fox hadn't looked so pathetic.

The room was bare except for a desk and a slatted chair seated behind it which faced the entrance. A white curtain on a track could be drawn across the room on the left-hand side to divide it—taking up nearly a third of the space.

Fangmeyer turned and took hold of the fox's legs and helped carry him over to a bed; clean sheets recently pulled over it. As Fangmeyer situated the fox, Wolford drew the curtain across the room for some sense of privacy. They both then took to rebandaging the fox, putting gauze over his face in the areas where he'd been cut and bruised.

"Do you think he'll be alright?" asked Wolford as he bound the fox's right leg carefully.

"I dunno. Probably not," said Fangmeyer. _'Who the hell could be okay in a place like this?'_ he thought bitterly. "He was muttering about Sgt. Hopps the whole way." He snickered to himself as he continued, "He called her 'Carrots.'"

That earned a bark of laughter from Wolford. "I'll bet she'd love that."

After a few more moments an unsettling thought occurred to Wolford. "Do you notice anything weird about this guy?"

The white wolf thought to himself for a moment. It had occurred to him as well that there was something odd, but he didn't want to prejudice his friend's response so he merely nodded for Wolford to continue.

"Like . . . his fur is super, super soft. Not coarse at all. Mostly long hairs, see?" he drew up a paw full to demonstrate. "Quality," he finished, looking at his friend.

"We're not selling his fur," said Fangmeyer flatly.

Wolford chuckled. "What I mean is . . . he seems like he's never had a hard day in his life."

"Maybe this was the lesson he needed. Yuh can't live in a bubble forever. But yeah," nodded Fangmeyer in confirmation, "I noticed it, too."

"Nobody needs this kind of lesson."

"He did if he thought he was going to be able to get through this life easily. It's not safe out here—and it confuses the fuck out of me because I have no idea how it is that he could not have known what the score was in this city. He can't be from around here or he would have known better."

"Any pred living anywhere knows that Zootopia's not the land of opportunity it was dreamed up to be. Makes me wonder why he would've come here . . . ."

Fangmeyer and Wolford continued working on the fox, both falling into an uncomfortable silence.

-.-.-.-

The elevator finally reached the lower level with a bang. Both Wilde and Clawhauser turned around to face what had been the back of the lift. Wilde reached down and lifted the gates.

Instantly the sounds of laughter and games met Judy's ears and she perked up. The instant the door was lifted and full view of the warehouse floor filled her vision she couldn't help but let out a breath of inspiration:

 _'It's a theme park!'_ she exclaimed to herself.

Nick watched curiously as what appeared to be a genuine smile spread across the bunny's face. There were children running, the sounds of carnival music, laughter filtering through the air—and _everyone_ was collarless.

As far as Judy was concerned, this was the most at home she'd felt since arriving in this strange place. The sense of oppression, the hatred, the sense of downtroddenness—all of these feelings evaporated almost instantly. The park itself sat behind a wall of ticketing booths that stretched the width of the warehouse. The blue and green colours were especially well-suited to the mood and helped to brighten the atmosphere, contrasting sharply with the sterile doctor's office that sat up top. Sitting in between the two sides of the ticketing booths was the narrow entrance to the park. At the gate sat a familiar looking fox, about the size of a child with large ears. He was dressed as a nurse and it was his task, Judy saw, to use what looked like a pricing scanner to remove the collars from the necks of predators.

Judy visibly relaxed which left both Wilde and Clawhauser exchanging nervous looks as she began to wander ahead of them.

"We're in deep shit," whispered Clawhauser.

"Why?"

"Haven't you seen the way she's acting? There's gotta be a reason for it."

"What do you think that reason is?" asked Wilde.

"Something big is about to go down and either we're all gonna get captured or she's got an escape route planned."

Nick merely looked at Clawhauser, puzzled.

"Have you ever known anybody who thought they were gonna die be so cool?"

Wilde perked up as the realisation suddenly struck him. _Clawhauser was right!_

He observed her again and noticed the way she looked around the place seemingly with a sense of wonder.

 _'This isn't right!'_ Wilde tried to control the rising tide of panic that rose within him as he watched her look around. He would have been proud of the affect his work had had on her except for the fact that she was who she was. The hardened mask had fallen from her face and she now seemed to be expressing a kind of innocence. She was well and truly charmed by the park and it seemed to him in that moment that she was beautiful. An odd thought for him to have about a sworn enemy, but this meant nothing to him, really, as he'd had experiences dealing with beautiful females—not all of them were what they appeared to be. That she was charming was—therefore—not disarming in the least. Though it had had the effect of shattering an image that he'd had of this creature in his mind. She was not at all what he'd expected.

Moving forward quickly, he reached her and took her roughly by the arm and led her toward the uncollaring booth and Finnick. When Finnick saw the both of them his eyes widened briefly before narrowing first at the rabbit and then at Wilde.

"I was wondering why we weren't having any more customers. Why the fuck you bring her down here an' not get rid o' her?"

"She's Judy Hopps!" Clawhauser chimed in from behind Wilde and Judy.

"Ah, so this is the infamous Judy Hopps. You pretty brave showing yo' face around here. What do you think of our establishment?" he asked as he leant forward over the counter.

Judy looked at him, barely able to contain her delight. "I think it's fantastic!"

She positively beamed, having totally lost control of her emotions. She couldn't help it. She had gone from a situation where she'd had to watch her back over saying the wrong thing to a place where it seemed that many inhibitions had been dropped and left by the wayside. Though she realised that she still had to keep a lid on her feelings, the initial excitement at seeing such freedom had taken her resolve completely by surprise.

Finnick only looked down at her, his eyes slightly widened. He caught Wilde's eye and received a nod in return.

"We know," started Wilde in response to the unasked question, "we're worried, too."

After a moment of contemplation Wilde spoke up again. "We're closing down Wilde times for now. The cops know that she's here and when they find her missing it'll only be a matter of time before they come following up on her and that means we're all getting taken in. Unless we can hold them off."

"Nick, I didn't sign up for this!" lamented Finnick. "Can't you just let her go?"

"So she can fuck us over by telling everyone that we're keeping a secret amusement park in an abandoned warehouse? And while she's at it, what? Tell them that we threatened to kidnap and kill her!" exclaimed Wilde. "Holding on to her's the only way we have a chance at an upper hand. Mancha's just came up and he's gonna talk to Mr. Big. I'm pretty sure either tonight or tomorrow is when the cops are going to come around here looking for her and when that happens we need to be ready to defend ourselves."

Finnick thought for a moment to himself and then gave a nod. "You right, Nick. We gotta get this off the ground quickly."

Judy watched as Finnick turned on the intercom system and called everyone in the park to the front entrance. A brief speech was made and the full breadth of the situation was laid out—with the exception of Judy's presence; she was, for the duration of the announcement, hidden behind the booth so as not to start a riot that would likely end with her killed. Mr. Big would not look kindly on that nor did Wilde feel like having his place of business becoming known as the place where a bunny cop was straight-up murdered.

The patrons were advised to tell everyone; alert everyone they could through text or word of mouth about the situation and inform anyone they could that there was to be a meeting at around three or four in the afternoon. Already a few phones had gone off and received messages—apparently Manchas hadn't wasted any time. Mr. Big would likely be heading the meeting as he was in charge of most of the affairs in the predator subculture.

Four employees went to facilitate the exit elevator and the recollaring of the patrons to prevent there being a panic as much as they could. Once that was done the workers were themselves dismissed. Wilde, Clawhauser, and Finnick, for the most part alone, gave each other worried looks as Judy came out from behind the decollaring counter. Finnick made another call over the intercom system telling the remaining ride workers there to shut down the rides. Judy was led by Nick, Clawhauser, and Finnick through three warehouses connected by long tributes so as to turn what Judy was sure had at one point been three separate structures into one long park.

Many of the workers recognised Judy as she passed them by, and many shouted out insults, others were trying to figure out what was happening and questioned Wilde. It was Finnick who responded to the majority of the questions, however. And it was only after a full explanation was given that many backed off. Knowing that Mr. Big, the boss of Happy Town, was getting involved seemed to placate the majority of those who tried to edge their way in; and the fact that Finnick received a text from Manchas stating that no one was to question her until Mr. Big got there sealed the matter.

Judy was beginning to realise just to what extent her counterpart had persecuted the predators here, and she knew that the chances of her getting out of the situation were slim to none. Still, she had to try, and to that effect she screwed her face up to look as menacing as possible, though inklings of her true nature had already shone through. She had a sense, however, that her captors were little inclined to believe the evidence of their own eyes. She knew that eventually, to save her own life, she would have to come clean about who she really was. Her phone, which rested at this moment in Wilde's pocket as they walked along, would have proof enough of that.

It was upon entering the third warehouse that Finnick suddenly piped up, as though he had suddenly remembered something.

"Nick, I forgot to mention it: We got a visitor in your office."

Wilde cocked an eyebrow. "What kind?"

"The kind Fangmeyer and Wolford bring."

Wilde grunted.

Judy marvelled at the impressive size of the coaster which seemed to criss-cross all around the third warehouse while leaving enough space for other games in the middle.

As they came upon his office which was hidden behind a chain-link gate behind the roar-a-coaster which also seemed to house the control podium for the coaster, Judy saw two wolves—one grey and one white—emerge from the office and head toward them.

Their faces darkened the instant they caught sight of Judy and she fought the urge to shrink back.

The grey one snarled at her once they got in range of her but she forced herself to stand her ground. "You bitch . . ." he ground out.

The white wolf stepped around him and stood in front of her for a moment, saying nothing. Just as the silence started getting uncomfortable he quickly drew back his paw and backhanded her across the face so hard that she was torn from Wilde's grasp as she fell to the floor.

Judy let out a cry of pain that echoed through the park. Wolford and Fangmeyer both began advancing on her but were quickly blocked by Finnick, Wilde, and Clawhauser.

Finnick reached up to Fangmeyer's shirt and pulled him down to his level as he shouted, "What the hell you doin' man? You get that we need her alive to figure out what the fuck the city's planning, don't you?!"

Fangmeyer was taken by surprise but quickly composed himself. "Cut the shit, Finnick. That little cunt deserves to die! She's a _cunt!_ She's had more of us arrested and nearly killed than _any_ other cop out there! _And_ we're pretty sure she was the one behind having that fox in there tortured."

"That can't be right. She got here around eight ten or so," said Nick. It was only eight twenty-three at the moment he found as he checked the time on Judy's phone.

"He's sure he saw her," said Wolford.

"It doesn't matter, dumbass, 'cause it turns out that Mr. Big just called dibs," Finnick explained.

At that both Fangmeyer and Wolford looked stunned. Finnick released Fangmeyer's shirt and let him go. Wilde turned and scooped Judy off the floor. She'd hit her head hard and was unable to walk so he simply carried her the rest of the way to his office while Clawhauser and Finnick stayed behind to get the wolves up to speed.

Once there he decided to place her in the side room where the wounded fox lay. He saw that someone had drawn the curtain across the room to divide it. He took Judy and propped her upright in the chair which he then brought in front of the desk. He undid one cuff around her wrist and drew her paws through the slats in the back before refastening them so she wouldn't be able to escape. He took some rope from his desk and used it to bind her feet and to tie her torso more securely to the chair.

He cocked his head and looked down the bunny who was now becoming more aware of her surroundings.

He arose and strode behind the curtain. Before him lay a beaten fox, about his size. Bandages and gauze were patch-worked across his body. Wilde noticed that the victim's face was swollen and had one particularly thick bandage covering his left eye. He observed the collar the fox was still wearing and withdrew the sergeant's keys from his pocket, held up the magnetic strip, and unfastened it. He looked down at the thing in his paw: it looked different from his own collar—it was somewhat larger. He let out a sigh. There was nothing more for him to do: the wolves had done their job well.

As he strode from behind the curtain he noticed his captive watching him carefully.

"That collar," she started, nodding toward his left paw, "it's got a tracker in it." She recognised it from a picture she'd seen of the new collars when she'd been researching earlier that morning.

Wilde looked down at the thing in his paw sharply as though it were a snake that might bite him.

"Don't destroy it," she slurred, "if you do they'll know something's wrong. They'll come here to track down the pred who took off their collar."

 _'Does she have Stockholm syndrome already?'_ he pondered.

"Why are you telling me this?" he asked.

"You need to keep the collar intact and drive it somewhere else to make it look like he's still moving so they don't figure out where he's gone. It wouldn't make sense for someone to travel to a secluded beach whose only attraction is some abandoned property and stay there unmoving for a long time," she pressed. "Someone might assume he's up to no good and come here to investigate."

"Why are you telling me this?" he asked again, completely bemused.

"Maybe I'm not the enemy you thought I was," she replied shakily.

Nick snorted.

"If there's anything else you need just keep it to yourself ," spat Wilde. He turned from her and strode out of the room. Just before closing the door he heard her mumble something. He opened the door wider and, in spite of his hatred for this female, called out, "Yes?"

"I said," she slurred, "'Actually, there is something you could do for me.'"

He had to give it to her: the bunny had chutzpah. "What's that?" he asked, genuinely curious now.

"Could you scratch my nose?"

It took _everything_ he had not to let out a bark of laughter. This was _not_ the personality he'd pictured when he imagined encountering Sgt. Judy Hopps. None of it was. In fact, when her guise had been uncovered he'd been expecting to die in a fire fight rather than be treated to stoicism and an occasional quip.

 _'Even monsters have a sense of humour,'_ he concluded.

He turned and closed the door behind him before heading through his office. He paused and emptied his pockets of the phone, keys, and other effects of hers and left them on his desk. He moved to the door but stopped for a moment and went back to her phone, curious to see what she had on it that might be useful. He scowled when just as it was powering up it shut off as the battery had run down. In a huff, he took one of the many chargers he had laying around and tried several before finding one that worked for her phone and began powering it up, making a note in his mind to return and check it out later.

He came out of the room, closed the door behind him, and locked it. He turned and saw Fangmeyer and Wolford talking with each other along with Finnick and Clawhauser; he saw their clawless paws and was once again filled with a sense of rage. He wanted to go back into that room and unleash his fury on the prisoner for no other reason than that she had made him laugh! At least internally. And that was a problem because she had resonated with him. The mask of beauty and virtue she seemed to wear he had to set by the wayside along with the aura of righteousness and peace she seemed to radiate; these were things he had to pointedly ignore.

He had no idea how she had done it, but she had somehow been able to undermine his instincts; currently they were screaming at him that something was wrong—that this was somehow not the bunny of whom everyone was afraid. Again, he forced these thoughts from his head: If there were anything to be learned, if not from what he'd seen in the world then certainly from having observed himself over time, it was that instincts could be fooled.

Growing up nearly parentless and practically on the streets had shown him how to hide his true self. When in survival mode, the body and the brain worked extra hard to keep one alive.

 _'That's what she's doing now,'_ Wilde reassured himself. She was surviving.

Wilde growled angrily at the tension this bunny was causing him—the way she'd been able to get under his skin so easily. He'd moved beyond that, he thought: having become a good read of character over time. This bunny was one huge exception to the usual concord between his instincts and his expectations which, across the majority of his adult life, he'd been able to rely on.

 _'I must be losing my touch,'_ he thought gloomily.

He let out a sigh and went over to the group: He had a meeting to prepare for.

-.-.-.-

Cevilla walked into the storage closet looking for some paper so she could restock the copy machine. She heard the door open and close behind and was startled when she suddenly felt someone grab her from behind. She let out a small scream and dropped what she had in her paws when she was quickly turned around and assaulted by a hail of kisses landing on her lips, neck, and cheeks.

"Garou!" she exclaimed as she melted into his embrace. The doe let out a moan as she felt his paws wander down her thighs before going up again and under her shirt.

"Not here!" she exclaimed as she felt Garou finish with the buttons on her uniform.

"I've needed this all day . . ." growled Garou. "My shift's almost over and I thought I might catch myself something sweet before heading off."

"Garou . . ." she moaned as she felt him fiddling with her pants. The belt came undone and so did the zipper. She felt them slide down her legs and very quickly she stepped out of both the slacks and underwear that pooled at her feet.

She let out a gasp when she felt the wolf's paw move to her nether region and she melted under his touch.

"Keep going . . . please don't stop," she murmured when he withdrew his paw.

He let out chuckle and growled down at her. "Sorry, babe," he began, his voice strained, "I can't wait . . ." he finished with a groan as he began to fiddle with his own belt buckle.

Cevilla gave a small nod and closed her eyes as she listened while her lover unfastened his belt—heard the swish of his pants as the fabric made its way down his legs. She looked down and saw his proud member already erect. She met his eyes and found him smiling down at her. She ran her fingers through the warm fur on his arms.

"Hang on," she murmured as she backed into a shelf that she felt could bear her weight.

Garou helped her up and spread her legs gently.

"No waiting!" she uttered breathlessly.

Garou nodded briefly before putting himself at her opening and thrust in as hard and as quickly as he could.

The doe wrapped her legs around his back and threw her arms around his neck, letting out a gasp at being so suddenly filled.

"Yes!" she said in a high and quiet voice. "Yes, Garou . . ." she trailed off as the lovers melted into each other. This was a lovemaking session that gradually evolved into an out and out rut. Ages upon ages in which the two of them had had to sneak around and hide, knowing that their relationship would have been looked down upon by society if they were caught, had led only to the occasional night together in which the two would be able to spend some time in bed with each other. Generally they both hated the way they had to sneak around but it also led to explosive sex wherever they could get it.

"Oh God!" the wolf uttered gutturally as he continued his thrusts pushing harder and faster. He was getting very close very quickly. Thankfully his wife wasn't too far behind him.

The shelf beneath her creaked as the pleasure within her mounted more and more. She closed her eyes and tried to muffle her cries of pleasure, pressing her lips together tightly in excited anticipation when she felt his knot begin to form.

He growled, gripping her thighs tightly as he pushed in faster and faster, loving the way her slick walls tightened around his member, feeling her loosen as his hips continued to push.

 _'No waiting!'_ he growled to himself.

He was about to come, and as fast as they'd been going he let out a snarl as he gave three slower thrusts, each one pushing in deeper than the last, pushing his knot in harder, he forced it up into his mate with a shout of pleasure as she writhed beneath him. "Oh yeah!" he ground out as he buried his muzzle into her neck.

They both came with a shout of raw pleasure as he began to spill his seed.

Their thrusting, though now limited, continued as deeply and as quickly as they could as they tried to prolong each other's orgasm for as long as they could both manage. They kissed deeply and passionately as they rode the wave of pleasure together

As the last ebbs of passion dissipated leaving only a panting couple, the two of them began to relax as the afterglow settled in on them.

"We shouldn't have tied . . ." said Cevilla breathlessly.

"We'll be fine. Besides, you know I'm good with knots."

Cevilla giggled and gave her husband another peck on his muzzle. "So, how's your day going?" she murmured.

"Bad." She frowned and ran a paw through his fur and scratched behind his ear. "Yeah . . ." he murmured as he leant his head into her ministrations.

"Anything I can do to help?"

"You already have . . ." growled playfully. Something in his voice must've been too intense because he suddenly let out a cry of pain as his collar shocked him.

He slammed his fist down on the shelf hard as anger surged through him.

"Isn't having to live a lie enough?" he began bitterly. "Can't I just make love to my wife in peace?" he finished as he choked on a sob. "I just wanna be with you so bad!" he said quietly though fervently.

Cevilla held her mate protectively "Well be together soon. Someday we'll get away from this place!" He pulled back and looked into her eyes before kissing her passionately.

He finally broke the kiss and looked down at her. "How was I ever so lucky to find you?"

She smiled up at him and caressed his cheek. "That's the kind of wolf you are. Good animals deserve good things."

"Are you a good thing?" he murmured teasingly.

"Not always," she replied quietly, pensively. "Sometimes, working here, I start to feel like I'm too much a part of the way things are. I don't like the way I have to act around these animals."

Garou nodded silently as he continued to think about how his day had gone.

Always attuned to his moods she prodded, "You know how it makes me feel to know my wolf's not feeling well. What happened?"

The wolf didn't answer immediately. He was still a bit breathless from their coupling, but that wasn't why. When she regarded him quizzically, he spilled. "Judy got another one."

Her eyes opened wide before scowling in anger. "Why does she always have to ruin everything?" She looked up at him. "Who was it?"

"I didn't see and they never said his name. It was a fox, though." He could recall having just barely glimpsed the basic size and colour of the creature Rhinowitz had been dragging along. The bushy tail was a dead giveaway.

"Want me to look into it?" she asked.

"No," he said quietly. "I'm pretty sure this one was off the books, too."

Cevilla let out a moan as her mate began twisting in order to free his knot. She shifted, herself, in order to give him a better angle. With a wet sounding pop it finally gave and, in spite of herself, Cevilla turned away in embarrassment before sitting up and gripping her mate's shirt as they both collapsed into laughter. After a moment their laughter died away and they quickly worked to dress themselves and smooth out any wrinkles.

As they straightened up Garou continued speaking. "Anyway, my phone's been blowing up just now. Every pred's been getting message after message. _They caught Sarge!_ "

Cevilla's mouth dropped open before it closed nearly immediately. "That's impossible."

"I know!" he began excitedly, "anyway in just a little bit there's going to be a mee-"

"No, no!" interrupted Cevilla. "I mean impossible as in it's literally not-possible. Sarge is here!"

Grou stopped in the middle of fastening his belt. "You're sure?" he asked.

She nodded. "Yeah. She just came back, like, a short while ago."

He was about to ask another question when she interrupted him again: "But you said something about a meeting?"

"Yeah . . ." he trailed off. "At Wild Times. Can you show me that she's here, because everybody I've been speaking to's been adamant that it's her."

Cevilla nodded and, quickly grabbing the paper she'd come for in the first place, opened the door. She made sure the coast was clear before waving the grey wolf through. They carefully approached the sarge's cubical and found it empty.

"I could have sworn I saw her. In fact I know I did—because she'd changed out of her uniform blues."

"Hmm . . ." pondered Garou. He never doubted his wife's ability to pick up on things and there was no reason for her to imagine that _another_ bunny named Judy Hopps came in earlier. Either way it was suspicious enough to bring up at the meeting.

"It could be she's still here somewhere and just went to go do something . . ." she trailed off.

Garou nodded. "I'll tell them when I get there."

"When's the meeting?"

"At four, but the soldiers are wanted there earlier."

She smiled up at him. "I love you."

"I love you, too," he smiled back. They looked around to make sure no one was watching before giving each other a kiss.

"Where are you going now, though?" she asked. It was only nine in the morning.

"I'm going straight there. I wanna see this with my own eyes." He made to leave. "Oh! I almost forgot: there's an email and phone call ban. Get the word out to as many prey who're with us as you can. Only text."

"What's going on?"

Her husband paused for a moment before regarding his wife. He let out a sombre sigh. "It's war," he grunted.

-.-.-.-

Back at city hall, a pig hummed to herself when she got another phone call.

"Hello?"

"Mayor Pricilla?"

"Speaking," she said smoothly, drawing out the word.

"That fox we were supposed to be tracking, it stopped across the water from the canal district at a private beach that hasn't been part of the service area for ages. Should we follow it now?"

"Hmm . . . track it to see if it goes anywhere else. I want everything to go off at five but if this fox is who I think it is we're going to need him in order to leave him the blame. Send someone to scope out the location, too. If this is the place we've been looking for we need to know soon; otherwise we need to figure out another target and quick."

"Understood." The voice on the other end bade farewell and hung up.

The pig thought for a moment before sitting forward and picking up a file from the pile in front of her. She opened it to reveal a picture of Nicholas Wilde sitting on top of a stack of other papers which had been clipped together. Her eyes roamed over the scars on his face. He'd make the perfect patsy; and whether she found his meeting place for predators or not, which she was certain now more than ever he owned and likely in conjunction with the largest crime boss in Happy Town—Mr. Big, she figured she could take out two birds with one stone.

"Oh, Mr. Wilde," she said to herself, "You picked the wrong day to be you."


	5. Reunion

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> The clock counts down and the time nears for the mayor to set her nefarious plot in motion. Cevilla and Garou find themselves in trouble, though guile and wit may end up saving them. The discovery that there are, in fact, two Judys throws Wilde company another curveball as they try to understand the situation. It all depends on getting the right information at the right time, but whether that information will be revealed in time remains to be seen.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Special Acknowledgement: First and foremost I would like to thank Soildier for his help in preparing this chapter. I am indebted to you for the time you've taken.
> 
> Author's Note: This chapter was a tough one to coordinate. Updates may come even more slowly as I'm starting back at university rather soon; though, rest assured that they will be coming and I will be trying to keep Tuesday as my update day.
> 
> I would like to thank all of my reviewers for your messages and questions. I really appreciate it! Please let me know if you have any questions that I could answer or if there's anything that I've left unclear that I need to clarify.
> 
> To those who've enjoyed my story, ! I only hope that my writing continues to be as good. I extend to you all, as well, the invitation to contact me here if there's something that needs clarifying—anyplace where I may have messed up.
> 
> As I stated before, I welcome any and all criticism pertaining to the story. If I miss a bit of grammar here or there let me know so I can fix it. If there's something that strikes you a mistake or an error let me know so that I can fix that, too; and yes, I do fix mistakes that are pointed out to me. Speaking from personal experience, nothing can take me out of a story more than a misspelt word or a grammatical mistake—especially if they're too common. Any other comments, questions, or concerns? Feel free to PM me.
> 
> Disclaimer: This is a work of fanfiction and has no claim whatsoever on the characters of Nick Wilde and Judy Hopps who are the sole property of The Walt Disney Company. In no way have I sought money, monetary value, nor profit of any kind for the writing of this story.

* * *

_ 9:32 AM _

"You want me to go where?!" exclaimed Clawhauser.

Wilde gave him a pointed look. "You need to go back to the ZPD and dump the sarge's car."

"And you said that that collar's got a tracker on it?" he asked as he took it from his paws.

"Yeah. All the collars that look like this have trackers. It's not safe to have them in the building."

"If what you're saying is true," began Clawhauser, "don't you think it's going to look weird that a fox came here on a ferry that's not even supposed to be on this route anymore? Nick, we gotta really cover our tracks with this. That fox—I know it isn't his fault—is begging the cops to come here! First, he comes here on a ferry that probably illegally ignored its shipping route-"

"It _is_ illegal," Wilde interrupted, nodding to himself. He had to know the law well in order to exploit it.

"-and second," continued Clawhauser, "that means that they can trace it back to the skipper. I think Wolford said it was Delgato. If they trace it to him they could pick him up! He might give up Wolford and Fangmeyer—not that he would want to!" appended Clawhauser when Wilde gave him a look of censure. "The point is that there's a chink in the armour now, and if we don't get ahead of it, we'll have less time than we thought before the cops get here!"

Wildegrit his teeth as he considered his options. Time was precious now. Things were unravelling too quickly!

_ 'So now' _ thought Wilde, _'I need to, very quickly, figure this out.'_

The first order of business was to get the collar out of this place as soon as possible, but suddenly remembered something else that was even more pressing. He took the collar from Clawhauser and took a picture of it with his phone before text bombing every contact in his address book:

_ If you have a collar that looks like this for the love of God stay away from Wild Times even if you're part of the Army. And do not under any circumstance come to the meeting tonight. Do not go to any pred hiding spots and do not do anything that you wouldn't normally do unless it involves large gatherings of preds at your home or work. We have it on good authority that there are trackers in these collars and until we have the ability to confirm or deny this ourselves it's better to be safe than sorry. Do not congregate and do not draw attention to yourselves! Pass on the message. Again, no email and use only word of mouth and text! _

He attached the picture of the collar and took two others from other angles for good measure and sent it out.

He looked back to Clawhauser who took a look at his phone when it vibrated. Clawhauser read the text and nodded to himself.

"Well, that's one problem taken care of," he sighed.

"I hope so," said Wilde.

"Have you told Mike about this?"

"I've been texting him and he knows what's happening. I didn't want him to be too worried if I didn't come home."

"Where is he now?"

"He texted me a little bit ago and said he was with a friend. I told him to make sure to stay off the streets."

Wilde sighed and Clawhauser paused.

"So . . ." began the cheetah, "what should we do about the rest?"

Wilde thought for a moment. "Koslov has access to shipping routes. He might be able to pull a switch with Delgato and get him off the water and off his shift."

"And replace him with who? If they pick up whoever replaced Delgato won't they still arrest him and question him? Except then it'll end up leading to Koslov."

"Maybe the better plan," began Wilde as the thought out loud, "would be for Koslov to pick him up himself?"

"Because the fact that he'd just be abandoning his ship won't raise any questions?" returned Clawhauser. "Either way, they know that the fox came here so even if they can't find Delgato they _will_ find this place!"

"Well, we have to get Delgato out; I mean: we can't just leave him twisting!"

Clawhauser nodded in agreement. "You want me to text him?"

"Yeah, text him," said Wilde. "He needs a warning. While you're at it text Koslov, too. He should be here soon, but he can delegate the job of getting him out as well as anyone."

Wilde took the time to text Finnick, warning him to turn away any members of the "Soldiers of Happy Town" who wore tracking collars. He finished and waited while Clawhauser sent his own text before speaking.

"So now, a few things:" Wilde began, "We have Hopps' police car here. We need it moved along with that collar. Throw the tracker down an alley for all I care; just get it far away from us and get the car back to the station. You'll have to risk it!" ended Wilde sharply when he saw Clawhauser was about to protest. Some of the soldiers had already arrived and he was grateful to see that none of them had the new kind of collar.

_ 'Must be something they're just rolling out,' _ he mused.

Clawhauser nodded and left with a sigh. "Later, Red!"

Wilde nodded back before turning away.

Wilde ran his paw over his face a few times in order to clear his head and de-stress somewhat. He turned to some idle soldiers who were there and enlisted their help in setting up the room for the rest of those who would be in attendance there in the second warehouse. There was a stage area there where musical entertainment was occasionally provided. It also doubled as an excellent dais for community meetings or meetings with the Happy Town soldiers, both of which took place there.

He went up to the dais and sat down in a chair, pulled out his phone, and began texting back and forth with some friends and members of the inner circle. He was bored out of his mind as he waited for folks to arrive. He chatted with those who knew what was going on and with those who actually had some sway. They were all working hard, wracking their brains as they helped facilitate plans for the ten and four o'clock gatherings. After much discussion between all the major players in Happy Town, it emerged that Mr. Big would, in fact, not be attending the earlier meeting. Mr. Big, it was said, was making his own plans and figuring out what needed to be done. Boris Koslov, Mr. Big's friend and fellow crime boss, would be presiding over the meeting in his stead. There was nothing much to do as the fox waited for the other attendees to arrive.

-.-.-.-

_ 9:10 AM _

As Garou drove he heard his phone vibrate. He ignored it while crossing the bridge to Happy Town but took a look at the message when he got to a stop light. The meeting was going to start at ten, the message read but asked him to arrive by nine forty. He nodded to himself and set the phone on the console between the front passenger and driver's seats. He could get there at the right time easily and decided to make a quick stop through Bug Burger to grab some breakfast. After such a long shift he hadn't anticipated having to have what he suspected was going to be another, even longer shift.

Back at the station, Cevilla was sipping from a cup of coffee and reading a magazine to herself when she was startled by the sound of her name being called. She turned around and spat out her coffee when she saw who it was.

Sgt. Hopps ignored the fact that doe had gotten coffee all over her blouse and continued to stare at her darkly.

"Sergeant! I-I'm so sorry-"

"Save it! I don't care at the moment. I have something more important for you to do, Shit-for-Brains."

The doe stifled an angry retort and merely looked ahead at the bunny.

"Yaguarete's giving me crap about accessing Bogo's laptop. Bogo sent me an email from his computer this morning and I need to get it. Since I can't, I'm going to need you to do it for me. After all, you're the one who told me about it in the first place." She smiled brightly at the doe.

"That doesn't sound like it's on the up and up," saidCevilla slowly.

"Oh, you're saying you have something better to do? I thought you might enjoy the opportunity to get the deputy alone. Use your feminine wiles. I'm sure he'd let you have a look if you threw him some."

Her jaw dropped but quickly tried to gather herself. "I-I would never do such a low-"

"You're telling me you don't like fucking savages? It's the damnedest thing because I would've sworn that I heard you and Garou smashing in the utility closet."

Cevilla sucked inbreath as fear began to set in.

"Yeah, I'm sure I did," she continued pensively. "I'm also sure I heard something about a meeting somewhere but I couldn't tell where that might be. And then (now this is real funny) I saw the two of you sneak out of the closet, and this was just my luck you didn't see me behind the planter," she gestured low to the ground, "when you were sneaking out. I guess that's another one of the fun perks of being so small. And then I saw you sneak around to my cubical to see if I was there and then you kissed in plain view! Isn't that strange?"

Cevilla didn't move. She didn't breathe. She was positively terrified.

"Now," continued Hopps in an easy tone, "this is no real surprise to me since I've known about your secret marriage for aaages. And the sad thing is that you two might actually make a cute couple if it weren't an abomination to do what you're doing. The two of you are in deep shit and it would take only one phone call to have the two of you arrested. You'd be surprised what you can get away with when things're _off the record._ "

Cevilla was on the verge of tears but held it in as much as she could. She didn't trust herself to speak.

"So now, you have a decision to make:" Hopps grabbed Cevilla's tie and pulled her down to her level and said, in a deadly quiet tone, "Either you get me those fucking emails off the chief's fucking laptop or I get to make a phone call and get that mangy husband of yours arrested. Declawing can be an _incredibly_ painful procedure and I'd sure hate for you to have to watch someone you love suffer like that when it all could have been avoided. As for you," she smirked humourlessly, "you don't have claws, so I may have to get creative."

Cevilla choked back a sob.

"So, are you going to get my emails or not?"

Cevilla said nothing.

"Nod!" shouted Judy so loudly many people in the station turned toward them.

Cevilla closed her eyes in terror and give a shallow nod.

Judy let go of her, pulled her wallet out of her pocket and took out three dollars.

"Get yourself some more coffee," she said to the doe before turning to go back to her desk.

It was about three seconds before Cevilla came out from behind the welcome desk. Slowly at first but then quickly breaking into a run she headed to the bathroom. She got into a stall and slammed it shut, sat down on the toilet, and proceeded to cry. She sobbed uncontrollably, making no effort to hide the sounds until she felt as though she'd cried all the tears she could. She was there for what felt like an eternity before she finally got up, freshened herself up in the bathroom mirror, and went to Yaguarete to try and retrieve the emails.

-.-.-.-

"What do you mean I can't have them?!" Cevilla shrieked as desperation overtook her. She looked at the jaguar across from her pleadingly.

She had explained to Yaguarete _everything_ the sergeant had told her and she couldn't believe he was denying her.

"This is what you signed up for when you got into this situation."

She couldn't believe what she was hearing. "You can't just let us die!"

"Oh yes I can!" he shouted as he slammed his fist down on the table. "The minute she walked out of here asking me for those emails I checked them out for myself. They're orders from the mayor to pick up Nick Wilde."

Her face fell.

"And you're asking me who I should throw under the bus? Hm, let me think about that: 'Should I betray two dumbasses who shouldn't be together anyway or Nick Wilde who has connections to nearly every pred in the city?' Yeah, gee, I guess that _is_ a tough call."

The doe sank down in her chair.

"You and your husband decided to do something disgusting and against all laws of nature! Hopps is resourceful; you should have _known_ that she was going to figure this stuff out! It's sad. I mean, the situation is . . ." Yaguarete broke off as he contemplated the unsavoury idea of the two of them together. He looked at her. "It's disgusting, but I don't think you deserve to die. Unfortunately, it's what you have on your paws. Now, please go: I have work to finish."

The doe rose slowly and quietly and left.

The doe covered her mouth when she left the room and closed her eyes as tears threatened to overwhelm her again. She stopped when all of a sudden a thought occurred to her.

_ '"The minute she walked out of here asking me for those emails I checked them out for myself. They're orders from the mayor to pick up Nick Wilde"' _

That's what the chief deputy had said! She didn't need the emails she could just tell Hopps the information directly! She started toward the sergeant's desk and stopped in the entrance. She made a little cough to get the sarge's attention as she was bent over some paperwork.

She was giddy with excitement and only hoped that this would be her ticket out of the shit house.

Hopps turned and was surprised to seeCevilla there.

"Yes?" asked the bunny as she raised an eyebrow.

"Uh . . . I have some good news!" startedCevilla brightly.

"I'm all ears!" smiled Hopps and she sat back.

Cevilla smiled.

_ 'Just tell her it's Nick she's after. Just . . . just betray Nick . . . .' _

And all of a sudden her plan fell to pieces. Could she really do such a thing? What would Garou say? There's _no way_ he'd want her to betray the cause, but the thought of him being tortured in front of her was too much to bear!

"Uh . . ." she started.

_ 'It would betray everyone in Happy Town!' _ she reminded herself. Thousands could die—her _husband_ could die. And then what would it all have been for?

"I . . . uh . . ."

Garou would never forgive her. She had to call him. She should have called him from the start! Her mind had been too all over the place to think of it; she had simply been too overwhelmed with thoughts of self-preservation. But what the hell was she going to do now?

"You said you had good news today?" prompted the rabbit.

"I . . . yes . . ." began the doe slowly.

When she said nothing Hopps nodded for her to continue.

"I'm . . . going to get the emails for you. I mean I figured out a way to do it."

Hopps looked at her blankly for a moment before she threw her head back and laughed. She wiped a tear away from her eye and turned away from the deer as she said, "For your husband's sake you'd better."

Cevilla nodded and made a quick getaway.

"What was that about?" askedRhinowitz as he sauntered up after the doe's departure.

Judy sighed. "Shit-for-Brains owes me a favour."

"Good luck with that. She was supposed to refill the paper in the printers and copiers but she never did it."

"I know. I saw the stack under the welcome desk. You know if it's that big a problem," said Hopps as the rhinoceros walked away, "you could get off your lazy butt and get the paper your own damn self."

He snorted and called over his shoulder. "Eat my ass."

"It's so big I wouldn't know where to begin," she called back.

She sighed and turned back to her work.

-.-.-.-

_ 9:27 AM _

_ 'Then it wasn't my imagination!' _ thought the doe as she walked away. Judy was totally and incontrovertibly here and _not_ at Wild Times.

She waited a minute or two after Rhinowitz departed for Hopps to leave her cubical for any reason. When she did, Cevilla surreptitiously pulled out her own phone and managed to take a few pictures of the sergeant and sent them to her husband with the message, "I just took these!"

Garou opened his phone when he heard it vibrate and smiled when he saw who it was. He paused in the middle of downing his breakfast to read it. His face fell when he saw the pictures and the text. Something was very wrong.

He was a pawn in the ranks of the unofficial police force he and his fellow predators comprised in Happy Town. He had no connections to Wilde himself and had no one else's number except for his superior's. He quickly sent a text back:

_ Thanks a million. Gonna get these to Nick or whoever's in charge once I get there. _

He closed his phone and practically inhaled the rest of his food before rushing to his car.

Before he could start the engine his phone started ringing. He saw it was his wife and answered it.

"We can't use the phone," he said when he answered it.

"It's fine; it's not actually about . . ." she trailed off.

_ 'The meeting,' _ his mind finished.

"Go on," he said.

He listened with increasing distress as his wife related to him the events of that morning spanning from what Sarge had told her to what Yaguarete had said. She mentioned the email and referred to Nick as "Red" and he took the point exactly. He sighed to himself. More than anything at that moment, he wanted to hold his wife in his arms and reassure her that everything was going to be alright. He told her that he'd text her once he figured something out and warned her not to tell Hopps anything at all about Nick until his say so.

He hung up the phone and set it down on the console. He sat back in his seat for a few moments before reaching forward in a sudden flash of anger and fury and started punching the dashboard as hard as he could repeatedly until there were several cracks in it.

"Fuck! Fuck! Fuck! Fuck! Fuck!" he shouted loudly with each strike, the scent of burnt fur reaching his nose as his collar shocked him repeatedly. He could feel it burn his neck but he didn't care. He was so furious he kept hitting even past the point his knuckles were screaming in pain.

He sat back when he'd exhausted the initial thrust of his anger and covered his face with his paws as a sense of profound uselessness overcame him. What business did he have supporting a wife if he couldn't protect her?!

_ 'How can you call yourself a husband?!' _ his mind shouted angrily.

He removed his paws from his face and just lay back in his seat as he sucked in a breath and let it out again. It came out shakily and he took several more before he finally sat up straight and started his car. He needed to talk to Nick and right fucking now—come hell or high water he was going to see him personally, rank or no rank!

_ 'And ask him for what? Permission to betray him to save my own ass?' _

He sighed. He'd do anything for his wife but he could never betray the movement. The only other option would be for them to flee. Pack her up in the middle of the night and hightail it outta there. There was no scenario in his brain that ended with them happily ever after, though, and he put his head against the steering wheel for a moment.

The future was as of yet unwritten, he reminded himself. Things might work out for them, yet. He calmed his mind as much as he could before opening his eyes, letting out a sigh, and starting forward.

_ 'First things first,' _ he told himself, _'talk to Nick.'_

-.-.-.-

"You can't talk to Nick," said the short fennec fox. It was nine forty on the dot. He had _just_ made it on time and was glad that he'd taken the buffer into account. True, the assembly wouldn't actually begin for another twenty minutes but he might've been needed for something else.

"Finnick, this is important!" he shouted desperately.

Finnick turned away. "Lotta people think what they have going on's important."

Garou pulled out his phone and turned to his wife's text. Unthinkingly, his temper getting the better of him, he reached forward and grabbed the fennec forcefully, turning him around.

"Did you just put yo' hands on me?!" started Finnick, his shout echoing through the second warehouse. No one noticed; however, as the shout was lost amid the cacophony of milling voices that charged the air.

"Look!" shouted Garou as he leant down to show Fennick the phone before the fox had the chance to say another word.

It had taken Garou eight minutes speeding to get here and from the moment he arrove he'd been met with hurdle after hurdle! Now here he was with Nick's friend and he was being turned away?! He hoped the pictures would change his mind.

Finnick snatched the phone from his hand and looked at the text and the photos. His anger evaporated in an instant and was replaced with surprise. He turned to see Wilde texting on the dais, a bored expression on his face.

"Nick!" shouted Finnick. A large polar bear who was on the dais with Wilde turned to look down at them. "Nick!" he shouted again when he got no response.

"In a minute!" replied Wilde angrily as he finished texting whomever he was texting. He turned to look down at them with an annoyed expression when he was done. "Yes?" he motioned Finnick up to the stage but Garou took his chances and followed as well.

Finnick started once he reached the top. "Are you sure you got the right bunny?" he asked as he walked toward Wilde.

Wilde looked down at Finnick quizzically. "How do you mean?" he asked.

"I mean" he continued, "are you sure she's really Sgt. Judy Hopps of the ZPD?"

Wilde nodded somewhat uncertainly. "Yeah, kinda. I mean, Clawhauser identified her so I'm pretty sure."

Finnick showed him Garou's phone. "Is this her?"

Wilde took one look. "Yup! Was there anything else?"

"Are you sure?" asked Finnick.

Wilde took the phone to get a closer look. "Yes."

"You're positive?"

"Yes, Finnick! I looked at it twice: _Yes_ —they're _exactly the same_!" he finished exasperatedly.

"The trouble with that, Nick," replied Finnick calmly "is that this picture was taken about thirteen minutes ago at the ZPD."

Wilde looked at the phone again, then at the timestamp.

"Is this your phone?" asked Wilde as he looked at Garou.

The wolf nodded and Koslov came closer to see over Wilde's shoulder.

Wilde saw the doe's avatar in the text log.

"Is this your . . ." Wilde trailed off as he looked up at the wolf.

Garou took a deep breath. "She's my wife."

Wilde cocked an eyebrow and both Finnick and the polar bear were looking at him now.

"Interesting . . ." Wilde trailed off as he read and reread the message and looked at the photos carefully.

He looked back at the wolf. "Your name is . . . ?"

"Garou."

Nick nodded. "Garou, would you mind if I texted her real quick?"

Garou gave a slight nod.

Wilde nodded back and texted:

_ Good day. I understand you're Garou's wife. This is Nicholas Wilde. I'd like you to send me another photo from your phone of Sgt. Hopps. A fresh one. _

Wilde turned the phone around and took a picture of himself for identification and sent it along with the message.

A few moments later a text came back.

_ Will these do? _

There were five candid photos of the rabbit in question.

Wilde texted back a quick "thx," before proceeding to look at the photos carefully.

_ 'I'm starting to like this less and less,' _ he thought to himself.

Wilde pondered for a moment, flattening his ears as his confusion compounded.

Wordlessly, he handed the phone back to Garou and walked off the stage. The others, including Koslov, followed him. He got to his office and unlocked the door. They went through and then followed him again when he opened up the door to the side room to reveal Judy Hopps sitting right in front of them.

He was pensive for a moment before he wandered into the room followed by his friends. Wilde issued a quick "Shh!" when he heard Garou growl and snarl menacingly behind him.

Judy was looking straight at them, now; though her head had been lolled to the side as her body been trying to pull her down into sleep. Her mind cleared, however, the instant she saw the huge polar bear walk into the room.

"So . . ." began Wilde as he reached her, "I've got a couple of questions for you." He reached out again to Garou for his phone before opening it and finding the text. "Who is this?" he asked as he showed her the photos.

Judy gulped. _'Who was that?!'_

Wilde removed the phone from her face.

"Fox got your tongue?" he asked. "C'mon! Who the hell are you?!" he suddenly shouted, leaning forward.

Judy paled beneath her fur. She'd been caught out, and now and there was no escape! She was going to have to come clean and be taken for crazy and disbelieved. How else would she be able to explain that there were _two_ of them? Would they even listen for that long? Would they let her live long enough?! The prospect of telling them that she was an interdimensional being was frightening as the very idea sounded ludicrous even to _her_ mind. She'd hoped she'd have been able to put it off for a bit longer but there was no other way, now: she had to tell them the truth! She swallowed nervously and trembled slightly at what she was about to say.

Mentally biting the bullet, she opened her mouth. "Okay, I-"

"They're probably sisters," chimed in Garou.

Everyone turned to look back at Garou who shrank back nervously under the hard gaze of Wilde and his friends.

"I mean . . ." said Garou nervously as he felt the tension in the room thicken, "they look exactly alike. Isn't the obvious answer that they're twins or something?" he finished weakly.

Judy was seriously considering slapping herself. _'Now, why in the hell didn't_ ** _I_** _think of that?!'_

"I was hoping to get an answer from _her,_ " said Wilde as he nodded his head toward Judy.

"The only question," continued Garou cautiously, "is whether she's actually Hopps or not. I mean . . . right? I mean no disrespect, Mr. Wilde, but I'm just saying . . . ." He finished speaking.

Wilde had to hand it to him: Garou had guts. He appreciated that the young wolf had had the decency to speak up when he felt he needed to. Still, he wanted to hear what the rabbit had to say.

"So, are you the sergeant or are you her sister? Not that it really matters in the long run—either way you're not getting out of here."

Judy was internally squirming and she had no idea what to do in this _very_ unexpected turn of events. On a whim, she said, "I . . . I'm her! I'm her sister! Her sister!"

He didn't trust this bunny for a moment. "Why did she call you here?" he asked.

"She didn't! I came on my own."

He shook his head to himself and turned to the others in the room. "No, that doesn't make sense. Hopps must have sent her in her place in order to scope out our operation and report back to her. I mean, that makes the most sense."

Garou made to butt in. "Actually-"

Finnick snorted. "More like feeding her to the wolves. At least this means we don't have to worry about the police department coming down on us so hard. Or even at all."

Garou tried again. "But she-"

"Maybe. Garou," started Wilde, "could you ask your wife whether she knows of any other rabbits working at the ZPD?"

Garou closed his mouth and nodded tentatively as he wrote and sent the text. A few seconds later he got his response.

"No," he answered. "She says all the other rabbits there are males. There's one other female but she's out sick. I can say right off the bat, though, that I know for a fact that there's no other female bunnies working there aside from the one who's out—especially none that look like her. If there were, we _all_ would've known about it."

"I guess I assumed you worked downstairs in the records department," said Wilde.

"I do; but that's news that definitely would have made it to us," replied Garou.

Wilde nodded pensively before a thought occurred to him.

"So, you're the sergeant's sister," he said, turning to Judy, "but nobody else at the department's heard of you; yet you're wearing her uniform? So she must've had some hunch about this place."

"No," she said.

"What do you mean?" growled Wilde. "You know, you're not giving any of us anything to go off of! I know you're some kind of police officer. Nobody can fake that—if you're faking now you've had top notch training in lying and somehow I get the feeling dishonesty doesn't come easily to you. Clawhauser saw _you_ at the sergeant's desk. He followed _you_ here. _You knew_ what the email said—both you and Clawhauser agreed on it!"

"I didn't have a hunch about this place. I got the email from Bogo and was able to find you in the system—both your place of business here and your apartment."

Wilde paled. "My . . . apartment . . . ?"

Judy looked at him quizzically.

He turned to the fox behind him. "Finnick, send someone around to check on Mike. He's with Morris, is that right?" He addressed his question to polar bear behind him.

The bear nodded.

Finnick made to leave the room and was already searching through his contacts for someone who could check on them.

"Bring him here!" Wilde called out as he left.

"My son, too," called Koslov.

Finnick nodded as he went out.

Wilde turned back to Judy. "So what're you and your sister planning?"

"I . . . I don't know! We're not planning anything! All I know is that I got an email from Bogo-"

"An email you read on your sister's computer?"

"Yes."

"An email which she hasn't seen? Clawhauser told me that he saw you delete it."

"Actually!" chimed in Garou, sounding suddenly quite desperate to get a word in.

Wilde turned. "Are you talking to me?"

"Yes, I'm sorry to interrupt but I have to say this: Hopps hasn't seen the email but she knows that there was one."

Wilde narrowed his eyes. "How?"

"My wife may have mentioned it to her before she knew there were two of them."

"But she didn't actually tell her what was in them?"

"No. She didn't know what was in them until about half an hour ago or so."

Wilde nodded and started to turn back to Judy.

"And! Sorry, can I just say one more thing?" said Garou, somewhat pleadingly.

Wilde ground his teeth angrily. "You know I'm starting to like you here less and less . . ."

"Please! I'm sorry, it's j-ust that Hopps is blackmailing my wife and trying to get her to tell her what the contents of the email are. My wife was told to get the email for her or she'd have both my wife and me arrested. She was able to get the gist of the email from Yaguarete and was going to pass it on to Hopps but didn't want to betray you. So now we're stuck and I need your help."

Wilde only stared at him as his own mind raced. "I . . . I'm sorry to hear that." It was lame but it was all his mind could think of to say as it tried to work out what must have been a very terrifying prospect for such a young couple. In fact, Wilde was beside himself. He knew _exactly_ what the wolf was feeling at the moment and after a few seconds thinking to himself he slowly said, "If the sergeant's sister is here it's only a matter of time before she tracks her down." Wilde paused as a pondered for a moment more. "Do it. Let your wife tell her. They're already able to track the fox here which is likely to cause all kinds of problems and it's likely the police're going to come here to check it out."

"If my wife tells her about the email, though, won't Hopps be on her way sooner than later?"

He had a point, Wilde thought. They had been counting on something taking place later that evening when it would become clear that Hopps was missing. Now it appeared Hopps wasn't missing at all and a mysterious sister had shown up in her place. As long as the email remained a secret Hopps would have no idea where to begin. The police would take a while yet to follow up on the fox but if they gave Sarge knowledge regarding the email she'd probably come alone. The email seemed to imply that it was a one-person job: the chief was asking _her_ to pick up Nick Wilde. Or so he guessed. It's certainly what Clawhauser had implied. It was also semi clear to him that Hopps' sister hadn't communicated her whereabouts to anyone nor had she confided in her the contents of the email or the sergeant wouldn't have been threatening Garou's wife for it. Something was off. Something was very off. There were huge chunks of missing information and if there was one thing he didn't like was to have to make a leap of logic.

If _he_ were working in tandem with someone to try and get on the inside of an organisation he'd be communicating with that person nonstop—but if Garou's wife were to be believed, they hadn't coordinated at all. Add into that that the bunny in front of him seemed to be totally unprepared for the questions he was asking her meant that she was probably lying.

_ 'If it doesn't make sense it's not true.' _

He now had in front of him two opposing paths—either she was working with her sister or she wasn't. If she weren't it would mean that this bunny had impersonated her sister and logged into her email without authorisation, gotten the information from the email herself and then come here for her own purposes which at this moment lay hidden; the other possibility was that she was, in fact, working with her sister and that for whatever reason she hadn't communicated where she was going. This destination—Wilde Times—was so intrinsically linked with the information given in the email he was certain that if this place had come up in conversation with the real Sgt. Hopps, it most certainly would have been in connection with the now-missing email and Hopps wouldn't have needed to ask Cevilla for the email at all.

Wilde thought back to when he'd initially tied her up.

_ '"Maybe I'm not the enemy you thought I was,"' _ __ she'd said. Wilde shook his head in an attempt to clear it. _'She must be working alone.'_ Or at least he hoped so. But why? And in what capacity?

He looked at Garou, finally having made a final decision. "Have your wife tell Hopps. If she comes alone we can set a trap for her; if she gets a group together to come after us, we can abandon this place and meet someplace else. Tell your wife—what's her name?"

"Cevilla," replied Garou.

"Right. Cevilla. Have Cevilla update us with what seems to be happening from inside the precinct. Even if it's nothing, we need to know."

"Should I have her ask Sarge about her sister?"

"No, no. We don't want to tip her off."

Garou nodded and began texting furiously on his phone. He walked out of the room as he continued.

Wilde turned back to regard Judy. "So why is it that you came here to investigate? Why did you hack your sister's email?"

Judy sighed. "I came here because I got an email-"

"You're _sister_ got an email . . . ."

"Right. And it said to pick up Nick Wilde today and that it was coming from up top."

"Why would you do that if you weren't actually with the ZPD?"

"I saw that you ran a clinic and I knew there was no way you ran a clinic."

"What does that have to do with anything? You're not with the ZPD! You're an officer, yeah. But I just don't get it! And how could you possibly have known that I wasn't a doctor? 'Cause I'm a predator?"

"No, it's just . . . ." Shit. She was getting backed into a corner. Time to lie. "I suspected that you didn't have a real medical license."

"I can assure you, Ms. Hopps, that Mr. Wilde has a valid medical licence," chimed in Koslov.

"I'm sure it's laminated and everything," she replied wryly.

"I'm done with this," said Wilde as he stood up straight. "She's not gonna give us a straight answer. Let's just have Mr. Big deal with her."

Wilde paused for a moment as he was about to leave the room and instead went back to check on the fox himself. He saw that the wolves had managed to set up an IV drip to keep him hydrated and sedated while he recuperated. They had removed his shirt in order to better tend the wounds on his chest and torso. He shook his head as he took in everything that the cops'd done to him. His body was a veritable map of pain. There was bruising and blood all over the poor male that he hadn't seen before where before his shirt had hidden it. He let out a sigh and walked from behind the curtain, through the room, and into his main office—Koslov had already left. He went out of both rooms, locking both doors behind him.

He found Garou staring at his phone quite pensively.

As soon as Garou sensed the fox was near he perked up and walked over.

"Cevilla just told me something odd."

Wilde nodded for the wolf to continue.

"She told me that Hopps wasn't even supposed to work today."

"Really?" he asked as he turned back to his office.

"Yeah. Not only that, but the only reason the real Hopps came in was because her phone and her patrol car had been stolen."

Wilde's attention snapped back to Garou in a flash. "Are you sure?!"

"That's what my wife's saying. Whoever this person is, whether she's Sarge's sister or whatever, they are _not_ working together."

Wilde was troubled. He had no way to independently verify whether Hopps _actually_ believed she'd been robbed or not but it seemed to fit with his previous line of thinking—that this bunny was working alone. It also occurred to him that he could work himself in circles with this kind of thinking. Until he had something more concrete in hand, he'd have to go with what was in front of him. Things'd be fine as soon as Clawhauser came back from . . .

_ 'From returning Hopps' car!' _

"Oh, shit!" he cried suddenly. He had totally and _completely_ forgotten that Clawhauser knew none of this and was walking straight into a minefield! He pulled out his phone and saw it was nine forty-seven. Hopefully, he'd be able to reach him in time.

-.-.-.-

_ 9:43 _

Clawhauser sighed as he pulled into the ZPD. He had managed to get here without incident for which he was very grateful. He was also grateful for the fact that there was no one else in the parking lot. Since he'd called himself in sick he wanted to sneak away as quickly as possible without notice. He'd take the metro back to Happy Town and express busses from there. Would take him a little longer, maybe about thirty minutes to get back, but he had to do it. He had just stepped out of the car and shut the door when a familiar voice behind him drew a surprised and terrified scream from him.

"What're you doing?" asked a very angry-looking bunny as she thumped her foot on the ground.

Clawhauser turned quickly and nearly gave himself a heart attack when his eyes confirmed what his ears had told him.

"Do I need to ask you again?"

"I . . . I-I-I-I was just . . ."

"Were you the one who took my car this morning?"

"No! I . . . how did you get out?!"

"Get out?"

"Yeah? Did Nick let you go?"

"Who the hell are you talking about and why are you in my fucking car?!"

"You . . . you don't remember . . . this morning?"

"The _only_ thing I remember about this morning was that Garou told me you were out sick! What the fuck is going on here? Has this whole fucking place gone nuts?! I got up and some asshole stole my phone and my patrol car and now I see you here with it! Do you have my phone, too?"

"No, I . . ."

"Goddamn it, Clawhauser, grow some balls and tell me the fucking truth! What the hell is going on?!"

"Uh . . . um . . ."

_ 'Just got to think up a convincing lie . . .' _ thought Clawhauser.

"Sarge!" came a bright and happy-sounding voice from the front entrance.

Hopps turned to look as a slender doe walked up to them.

"Cevilla? Do you have my email?"

"Email?" asked Clawhauser.

"Yeah, someone got into my email this morning," started Hopps, "and deleted an important one I got from Bogo; and by 'someone' I sure as fuck hope I don't mean _you._ "

Clawhauser backed up against the car. "No, no . . . I . . . I didn't . . . ."

"Anyway," interjected Cevilla, "yes I have it. Or rather, I know the contents."

"Go on," the rabbit prompted.

"Bogo wants you to find someone named Nick Wilde today and bring him in."

The rabbit looked at her quizzically. "Nick Wilde?"

It seemed to both Cevilla and Clawhauser that the rabbit seemed suddenly doubtful.

"Yes. That's the name. He runs a clinic on-"

"Yes, I know, the Speedy Care," finished the rabbit. "I know _of_ him: he's a-" she snorted, "-doctor; but he's small potatoes compared with much larger fish in the city. Did the email say why?"

"Nope. Just that it was coming from up top."

Her face seemed to brighten at that. "I see . . . ." Hopps paused for a moment before she headed back inside.

"W-Wait!" shouted Cevilla, "d-don't you wanna go after him now?"

"Not that it's any of your fucking business, savage lover," she called over her shoulder, "but does it occur to you that I might want to do some research first before plunging ahead into a possibly dangerous situation?" She suddenly turned around. "By the way, you'll be happy to know that you're off the hook with me for now. Still, I may need something from you in the future, so don't think the deal's over yet."

She turned back toward the station and went inside. She couldn't help but wonder if it had been this Nick Wilde to whom Clawhauser had been referring.

_ 'I don't know,' _ __ she thought to herself, _'but I'll be sure to question him about that later.'_

Cevilla covered her face again in anger and frustration. She'd never be off the hook!

The doe let out a gasp and cried out when Clawhauser suddenly turned her around.

"Did you really just _do_ that? Did you _really_ just sell Nick out? Sell _us_ out?!" He spoke in hushed whispers and non-threateningly but was clearly desperate.

"Nick didn't tell you? This is all cool! It's been covered!"

"And why the hell is Hopps here? And who the hell was that back at the park?"

"Oh, wow, you left before all the interesting stuff happened. Turns out there's two of 'em."

"Two Sarges?"

"No, two Hoppses."

He stared at her.

"As in two Hopps sisters. Garou figured they were probably sisters but that they weren't working together."

"That doesn't make any sense!"

"I know! So now Nick figured that there's some plot that centres on picking him up. He doesn't know why Chief wants him picked up, just that he does."

"But then why let the real Hopps in on it?"

"Garou told me that Nick figures it this way—Either the cops come and pick him up because of the fox they tracked there when they come looking for him or the cops will be going there because Judy's headed there. Did the email tell her to go there alone?"

"Not specifically, no; it seemed like it was something he was asking her to do by herself."

"Hm. Well, either way, Wild Times is no longer safe. So he figured why not just let me tell her. And if she goes there by herself it's a bonus!"

"How?"

"Duh! Trapping _both_ Hopps sisters?"

Clawhauser nodded.

"Then all I have to do is watch what she does and text Nick."

"Alright. I better get going."

"You taking a car?"

"Nah, mine's there."

"Oh, well, how're getting back?"

"Metro."

"No way!" She pulled out some cash from her wallet. "You need to get back there quick."

"Oh no, I couldn't!"

"Pay me back later if you need to, but as it is there's very little time and things seem to be happening quickly."

Clawhauser nodded reluctantly. He didn't really have the money for a cab and he was thankful for Cevilla's offer. "Thanks." He smiled as she handed him the money.

"No problem. Hey, we'll catch up later. I gotta get back inside."

She turned and headed back into the building. Clawhauser turned around and headed back to the parking lot entrance. It was a while before he was able to get a cab and it was as he waited that he felt his phone buzz.

It was a message from Nick:

_ Hey, Clawhauser, I was in an interrogation and I forgot to have someone let you know that there're two Hoppses in the mix. _

Clawhauser frowned, slightly annoyed and texted back:

_ Yeah, some warning would've been nice. Cevilla distracted her enough. Didn't even ask me about the car and what I was doing with it. Gotta say that it seemed like Hopps had heard of your reputation but she thinks you just run a fake clinic. I don't know all of what's going on but hearing your name distracted her enough that she didn't even follow up with me about what I was doing. Didn't even wonder why I was here and not at home like I said I'd be. _

Nick received the text and frowned. Without having been there he couldn't be certain, but he was relatively sure based on that description of her behaviour that she knew more than she was letting on. On the outskirts of his attention, he heard Garou mention that Cevilla had just texted him to say that Judy seemed to be staying put and was just making calls on her phone and texting before looking things up on her computer.

Something else was going on and he needed to know what.

Clawhauser sighed when he got no response and sent another text following his first saying that he'd be there as soon as he could and that he was taking a taxi. He pressed enter just as a cab pulled up and got in. He told the driver where he was headed and they took off. He sighed and looked out the window as he tried to clear his head and think about the new information that seemed to be piling up.

-.-.-.-

_ 10:01 AM _

Sgt. Hopps rubbed her forehead as she started getting a headache. The mug shot of Nick Wilde stared out at her from her computer. She had heard of him but didn't really know what he did—she had gotten hints that he really wasn't a doctor and that he was fronting for some other illegal activity. That Bogo had asked her to pick him up indicated, at least to her mind, that this Nick Wilde was a lead on the feral animal case. This didn't make sense to her, though. As far as she knew this is was just about finding out how and where the animals were going feral and it didn't make sense to her that a small-time crook and hustler, according to his police record, would be somehow responsible for this.

_ 'His clinic would make for a decent venue and he would certainly have plenty of clients.' _

She'd been almost certain that the epicentre for the spread of the condition was in Happy Town somewhere, but as she regarded the evidence now there were a lot of things that weren't adding up. She heard her phone ring and let out an exasperated grunt as she answered it.

"Sgt. Judy Hopps of the Zootopia Police Department speaking."

"Ah, Ms. Hopps."

"Mayor Pricilla?" she asked, confused.

"I was just wondering why you hadn't yet picked up Nicholas Wilde."

"How do you know whether I have or haven't?"

"I have my ways. I know everything that goes on in this city. I want that fox, my dear. Coal tells me you had him in your custody this morning but that you let him go."

Her eyes widened. " _That_ was Nick?"

"Wasn't he?"

"I have no idea. Have you checked the collar? I put one of the new ones on him. The doctor should have uploaded its information on it."

"Ah, yes, _now_ I remember. It seems he came in without identification."

"That would do it. So, uh . . . what did you want me to bring him in for?"

"My office has been able to obtain information suggesting that he is the key to your case on feral chompers."

Hopps raised an eyebrow. _'Just as I thought.'_

"That seems . . . interesting . . ." mused Hopps out loud, "but after reviewing the evidence and the pattern of emersion of feral animals it doesn't seem to me that it's happening in Happy Town at all. I'd been led to believe just based on assumptions that it was someplace in Happy Town but-"

"Happy Town _is_ the source!" said Pricilla sharply.

Hopps jumped but regained her composure. "Alright alright . . . I'll do some investigating in Happy Town and see if I can find him."

She hung up and sighed before reaching into her desk, pulling out a spare set of keys and headed for the door.

She heard Cevilla call out to her just as she was heading out. "Where are you going?"

"Jeez, are you always this nosy?" Hopps sighed exasperatedly.

"What if Chief asks where you are?"

Hopps nodded. "Something's not adding up. I gotta see if I can find this fox or not. Nick or whatever. Just finding him, though. Not gonna bring him in until I have backup." That was the smart way to play it, she figured.

Cevilla nodded and sent a quick text as the bunny went out.

As Hopps walked up to her car she made a mental note to ream Clawhauser for having taken her car. She realised she'd never properly reprimanded him for that. She hummed to herself as another thought occurred to her: The fact that he had driven her squad car had to mean that he had to have a key to it which meant that at some point he had had access to her keys. Had he been the thief who'd stolen them? There were a lot of things going on now that weren't making sense. People were acting out of the ordinary and it unnerved her. She got into the car and started it.

_ 'Okay . . . find Nick Wilde _ __ **_ somewhere _ ** _ in Happy Town . . . .' _

She had brought with her the address to his apartment and workplace. That was no guarantee that anyone were there.

She ground her teeth.

_ 'This is starting to feel like an exercise in futility.' _

-.-.-.-

_ 10:10 _

Mayor Pricilla sat forward in her chair "What do you mean Wild Times is closed?!"

"If you'll permit me," said the ram, "what I said was that it was closed to the public. We have a source who says that there's a large gathering of the so-called chompers taking place later this afternoon: Around four or five. There's another one taking place, now."

"How large a crowd?"

"The later meeting? Packed, from what I was told; just short of standing-room. Seems as though most able-bodied mammals are going."

"Seems as though things are on track, then. But just _barely_. Not exactly what I'd been expecting, though." She smiled but then suddenly scowled.

"Ma'am?"

"Oh, just one little snag. I needed Hopps to pick up Wilde and it seems she may have let him go this morning without realising it."

"Ah. Well, my source tells me he's there from what he's been able to figure out."

"Damn! She's not going to be able to get through the savages there. And by the way, do you have any idea what it was that tipped them off that something was wrong in the first place?"

"None at all. All the chompers my source's been able to hone in on have been keeping quiet on that front. He was lucky to get as much as he did. Seems there's a ban on communication with any outsiders, and while he's good at blending in, there's no faking whether you're part of the fold or not."

The pig sighed. "Hopps was kinda central to this. She's been on my shit list for a while and I was just hoping that this would be the chance to get her to stop the investigation."

"She's been one of our best workers!"

"That may be so, but I know a delicate spirit when I see one. That fuck up a year ago is not something I'm willing to forget. She may have thought she was gonna get off scot free. She's got another thing coming."

"So then . . . ?"

"So, then, we may have to deal with her manually. I want her there, one way or another. Especially after the stunt she pulled with Rhinowitz this morning. Did you know she interrupted the declawing of that creature?"

"Hmm . . ." the ram trailed off.

"Exactly."

"Alright, I'll get someone on it."

"Get Coal on it. He has to do this quietly. He can't alert her to what's happening."

The ram nodded and left.

The pig rested her head in her hands. Things were getting more difficult by the minute.

-.-.-.-

_ 12:07 PM _

Nick sighed to himself as the animals petered out of the park. The meeting had gone off without a hitch. Everything had been brought to light except for the fact that they had captured either Judy Hopps or her sister. No good would have come of that until they knew one way or the other what was going on. If there were anything he wanted to avoid it would be rash action and he knew that even the possibility of her capture would've set off a flurry of responses. For this reason, only Koslov, Mr. Big, Finnick, Clawhauser, and himself knew. He had taken the time to swear both Garou and his wife to secrecy in order to avoid word getting out.

The meeting had discussed what to do in the event that a cull was initiated. A text bomb was to be sent out from any citizen to witness the initiation of any kind of violence on behalf of city hall and Mayor Pricilla. The text would go out to every member of the predator army who in turn would text bomb their contacts allowing many predators to become aware of the situation in relatively short order.

Other things such as strategy had been spoken of and what tactics would be used to fight off an invasion. Certain sections of the city had been designated for each troop to patrol. Briefings by both Wilde and Koslov as well as news regarding what part Mr. Big was going to play were presented. Mr. Big had done a masterful job of orchestrating much of the planning but he was no general. Not by himself, anyway. He and Koslov had devised excellent strategies in conjunction with the leaders of the militia.

The two-hour long meeting felt as though it had taken nearly all day. Wilde was positively knackered. Mike had arrived a short time ago and he'd let him into his office, giving the young man strict instructions to stay away from the annex. Drained of energy he walked to his office where he found his son sitting back and playing a game of solitaire.

He looked up from his game as Wilde walked in. "Are you done yet, dad?"

"For now," he sighed as he closed the door behind him. "Wanna grab some lunch?"

"Is it safe?"

Nick sighed. "You don't feel safe?"

"What do you think? You have one of uncle's goons pick me up and bring me here. He wouldn't tell Morris and me anything. I didn't know if something had happened or if you . . ." he trailed off. "Anyway, when Kevin got there and told me to pack my trunk I didn't really know what to think."

Wilde came over and hugged his son who hugged him back, tightly. "You're getting too smart."

"Too old."

"You're only fifteen."

"Old enough to know how messed up things are."

"You know I'm here to look after you, though, right?"

"I know. I just have to keep reminding myself of that." He let go of his father and reclined in the chair. "So who's in the side room?"

Wilde sighed. "You wouldn't believe me if I told you."

His son sat back and hummed to himself.

"Anyway," Wilde said, "Koslov said he'd take us to lunch if we wanted."

"He's taking us out by ferry?" Mike brightened.

"Yup!"

"But who's gonna watch her?"

"I . . . uh . . . I'm staying behind."

Mike shook his head. "No, Dad, I wanna stay here."

"I'm not gonna disappear if you go."

"I don't wanna risk it."

"Ya gotta eat, Mike."

"So do you! Can't they just bring something back?"

"They were gonna bring something back for me. I just thought it might be a good idea for you to get outta here for a while."

"It does sound like fun, but . . . I dunno, I just kinda wanna stay here."

"You sure? Morris is going . . ." he said as he smiled, knowing the lure was becoming more and more enticing. He could see the kid vacillating.

_ 'Only a little more to tip him over the edge.' _

Wilde finished. "Koslov said he'd let you ride on his back, too."

He cherished the moment he saw his son make his decision. A wide smile spread over the boy's face. Boy, was Koslov going to be surprised to find out what he'd promised but he had no doubt the bear would have no trouble complying.

Mike got up and hugged him before bidding farewell and leaving the office to find Koslov and Morris. Nick sat down in the chair his son had been occupying. He heard a muffled sound from the other room and got up, chair creaking as he did, and opened the door. The rabbit looked at him from her chair.

"I need to use the restroom," she said tentatively.

Nick sighed and went over to her. He unbound the ropes and carefully and quickly managed to undo the cuffs before reattaching them and walked her to the washroom.

"Who was that kid?" she asked as he led her

"None of your business."

She could hear the two of them speaking through the wall and was curious. Now she strained her ears to pick out the voice as they walked. She caught it and turned toward the source, an older kit, talking to a polar bear of some size though clearly not full grown whom she took to be Koslov's son. She nearly tripped when she saw he was the spitting image of Nick when he was a child.

"He's your son," she said out loud, astonished.

Wilde looked sharply in the direction she was looking and let out a growl.

"Those ears of yours are going to get you into trouble someday. But I'm curious, how do you figure he's my son?"

"Because!" she started as though it should be obvious, "he looks like . . ." she stopped herself before she finished. And how was she supposed to explain that she knew what Nick looked like when he was younger? "Well, I mean . . ." she stuttered, "he looks a lot like you."

Wilde nodded tersely and seemed satisfied.

"Is his mother here, too?"

"His mother's dead!" growled Wilde angrily.

Judy's mouth dropped open. She didn't dare ask how. They sped up now and he was jerking her by the arm. When they finally reached the restroom he stopped her and turned her around.

"It's thanks to the likes of you in this city that my son doesn't have his mother in his life. Do you have any idea what it's like losing someone you love? What it's like having to tell your son why he's living with you now?!" He was crushing her arm now. He spoke in a quiet tone that in no way belied his resentment. "And I swear to God if I lose my boy because of what you brought here you're going to be the first to go!" He let go of her arm and pushed open the door. "Go! And hurry up!" he shouted.

She had no idea how he had meant for her to use the bathroom without first uncuffing her paws, but she hopped backwards through the loop she made with her arms to get her paws in front of her.

When she was finished she found Wilde leaning against the wall next to the door.

"You know," he started without looking at her, "I never really understood what all of this was about. Why you people treat us the way you do. But now, after having lived the life that I have, I think I know the answer. It's all about power for you, isn't it? You just want to be able to do things they way you want. Isn't that right?" he was looking at her now.

Judy replied softly. "It's because, in the end, we're all just animals. In the end, there are always going to be those mammals who're willing to take advantage of others. Some prey feel as though they were being taken advantage of. Then there are others who never really believed in the cause of peace. Whatever the reason, it all boils down to power."

He snorted. "You're talking like you actually believe that peace is something we ever could have had."

"I know we can!"

"Ironic words coming from someone who wears that uniform."

"You don't even know who I am."

"I know you're prey. I know you're representing yourself as someone working for city hall—which is what that uniform amounts to."

She looked down sadly. "I wish . . ." she trailed off. The fox beside her sighed.

"I know . . ." he replied. He took her arm, his anger seemingly vanished, and carefully led her back to the office.

He'd seen her fear and her sympathy when he had his outburst and when he spoke to her about the death of his son's mother. It was such a strange feeling to have, but it seemed to him more and more that this bunny was different, defying his expectations. She was hiding more—he knew that much, but he got the sense that she wasn't actively working against him. He had been pacified somewhat by that thought. What troubled him now was what would happen once Mr. Big arrove. He had no interest in seeing this bunny die. It wasn't personal, but it was the likely outcome.

He shrugged and sighed. His only real regret was that it was happening here. Mr. Big knew how to get his hands dirty and seemed to have no compunction about it.

_ 'She got herself into this mess,' _ __ thought the fox, _'and it's up to her to get herself out.'_

Nick closed his eyes and thought about what he needed to get done. He closed the door to the side room, leaving the bunny bound and cuffed, as he went through in his mind what he'd have to do to get ready for this afternoon. He'd asked for people to arrive an hour early which gave him only about two hours to get things set up. He knew they'd all probably be arriving about fifteen minutes early, anyway. He locked the door to his office as he came out and started delegating to some of the workers who'd remained to help set up for the larger crowd that'd be arriving at four.

-.-.-.-

_ 2:23 _

Nick Wilde awoke groggily, his bleary vision obscuring his vision as he tried to wake himself. He'd felt as though he'd been hit by a bus and winced when he realised he essentially had been. For the few short hours he'd been asleep, his mind had allowed him to escape the reality he had faced earlier in the day, but now as he sat up—or tried to—the reality of his new situation came crashing down on him. He sat there for a few moments and reflected on his new situation.

_ 'Guess it's back to hustling,' _ he thought to himself somewhat stoically.

He hadn't wanted to return to that life, but it was clear that that was all he'd be suited for here. Return to being a cop? No way was he going back to that place. He felt a terrible sense of resignation and fury settle in the pit of his stomach. The prospect of having to leave and start over from scratch was a daunting one, but he'd managed to survive before and he'd survive again. He didn't want to, though. He felt exhausted and tired of trying. But what else could he do?

As his senses returned to him he looked around and noticed that he was surrounded by a white curtain. He was lying on a bed and had an IV drip in his right arm. He heard snoring from the other side of the curtain and assumed that he must be in a hospital but after taking in the objects surrounding him he knew that that wasn't the case. Books, papers, and filing boxes seemed to almost fence him in. He looked down at himself and found that his torso and arms were bandaged and his shirt was missing. Someone had done a rather nice patchwork job on him. He touched the bandaged that was covering his left eye and removed it.

_ 'Bad idea!' _

It was still swollen to the point where he couldn't see out of it. He pulled out the IV, deciding that he wanted to have a look around. As he pulled back the curtain and took in the very dimly-lit room around him he realised he wasn't in anything that could even _remotely_ be called a hospital. As his eyes scanned the room his heart froze as they landed on the terrifying figure that sat snoring in a chair.

He had no idea what the hell was going on now. It seemed to him that he had entered another level of hell. He felt trapped, all of a sudden. Looking at the snoring bunny—as innocuous as she seemed—served only to remind him of the cruelty he'd faced at her paws. Her words had cut him more deeply than anything he'd ever felt and had hurt him worse than the torture he'd endured throughout the course of the day. She'd broken his heart.

Not daring to look at her any longer and wishing only to escape the room, he started looking for an exit. He saw a door along the wall to his right, directly in front of the bunny. He quietly edged his way there before opening it and hobbling his way through it. The pain seemed to increase as he moved and spread all throughout his body. He was tender absolutely everywhere. Or so it felt. He left the door ajar as he wandered around. He seemed to be in some kind of office. He saw monitors stacked up on the wall to his left and observed what appeared to be an amusement park. There were people milling about and setting up chairs for what seemed to be a rather large event.

He wanted to be _there_ and out of the room and away from _her_ more than anything. He tried the door and found it to be locked. He banged as hard has he dared and shouted as loudly as he could but stopped when he found there was no response. Maybe there was someone he could call? Or at least a game to play or something?

He looked around and saw an abandoned game of solitaire on the desk opposite the door along with a phone and a few other knickknacks. He went over, shuffled the cards, and sat down to play a game. He had gotten nearly halfway through one round before he found himself bored of it. He reached over to the phone in the hopes that whoever'd left it had some decent games on it, unplugging it from the charger.

He switched it on and waited for it to load. As it booted he heard a groan from the other room. He definitely didn't wanna go in there now and he quickly tried to muffle the phone when he heard it let out its start-up jingle. When it had finished he took the phone out, swiped it, and got ready play a game. Silently, of course. He planned to turn down the phone's volume. What he saw came as a blow so heavy he nearly dropped the phone.

The universe was just fucking with him now:

Staring out at him from the phone was a wallpaper picture—a selfie—taken by Judy of the two of them together in a smiling pose. He sucked in a deep breath as his wind seemed to leave him moments ago. With a trembling paw, he reached forward to the camera function and began to look through the pictures on it. The very first one was the one she'd taken last night of the two of them smiling into the camera. His stoic demeanour was starting to crumble. He swiped to the next one: The two of them kissing. The one after that: the two of them at the ZPD with a smiling Clawhauser.

He went through the whole camera roll until he established to his satisfaction that it hadn't been a dream; it'd been _real_! He covered his eyes and choked back a sob. Setting down the phone he stood and started limping his way to the door frame. He looked at the lightly snoring rabbit before him, but not quite daring to hope that it was she. But looking at her now in the half-light the provided by the office reassured him that it was. _It had to be!_

Looking at her face he could see it was devoid of any ruggedness which he'd observed this morning. There was no malice nor hatred—though maybe it was just because she was sleeping. He stepped forward, coming closer. Then closer and closer still. Until he was right in front of her. His nose had never betrayed him and it confirmed for him what he'd hoped.

_ 'She smells like me!' _

He hadn't noticed it before as the whole area seemed to smell like him—but she especially, he could tell, had had her scent mingled with his.

He nearly fell in front of her as his knees became weak, choking back emotion as he reached forward and gently caressed her cheek.

"Hey . . ." his voice was shaky, hope and love threatening to overwhelm him and he nearly choked on his sobs. Looking at her now he could see she was _clearly_ his. He knelt down, half collapsing, to her level. "Hey!" he said more loudly, "Carrots!" he shouted as he gently shook her.

The bunny opened her eyes and she looked up at him. Her foggy vision quickly cleared when she realised there was a fox kneeling in front of her. As her senses came back to her she took in his state—he was badly injured and had bandages all over his body and partially hiding his face. She looked into his eyes. And suddenly it struck her.

"Nick?" she asked tentatively.

"C-Carrots . . ." he said as raw relief flooded his chest.

She suddenly jerked forward, straining against her bonds, trying to get to him, as she cried out, "Oh my God! Nick, what did they do to you?!" Tears began streaming down her face as the pain of seeing her beloved in such an awful state. He fell on her and wrapped his arms around her and the chair as he started sobbing into her shoulder. In each other, they found an overflowing well of fresh water. The physical closeness, the feel of their fur on each other, the warmth they were able to share all added to their mutual relief as they wept into each other.

Nick held her tightly, petting her head, nosing her and taking in her scent. _It was her!_ He had no doubt. She was his anchor to reality, his everything. There was no way he would have been able to stand another day in this place without her! He pulled back and looked down at her. He kissed her lightly and she leant into him.

"Nick," she began tearfully when they broke away from each other, "what happ-"

She was cut off when he again kissed her deeply.

"What happened?" she asked through tears when they broke off as he caressed her. He couldn't keep his paws off her.

"Why're you tied up?" he suddenly asked angrily.

"Nick, they think I'm a spy or something! I didn't tell them that I'm from someplace else. Nick, this place is awful!" As she spoke he went around her undoing the rope. When he finished he went into the office to search for a pair of handcuff keys. Or, failing that, something just to get her out of the chair. He found a set of keys lying on the desk and he reached for them, seeing there was indeed a handcuff key on it.

The instant he'd unlocked Judy she raced around the chair and hugged him tightly. He winced and let out a cry of pain.

"Nick! Oh, Nick, I'm so sorry!" she said as she tried to help him up. He seemed to be leading her back behind the curtain and she realised at that moment that this was the fox whom she was supposed to have abused. She had heard the wolves in here earlier talking about how he'd been tortured at the hands of those at the ZPD and had had harsh treatment at her hands. They walked behind the curtain and she found the bed there and helped him ease back down into the mattress. He scooched over and patted the spot next to him and she obliged.

He put his arm around her and pulled her closely to himself.

"Nick what happened to you?" she asked. "Did I . . . was it me . . . ?"

"No!" started Nick sharply as he nuzzled into her fur, taking in her scent. "She was nothing like you. How did you know about that anyway?" he looked down at her.

"The people who were in here taking care of you mentioned that it was Sgt. Hopps. I have no idea what's going on but it seems like there's two of us in this world!"

"How'd that happen?!"

"I don't know; but Nick, I woke up this morning driving a car! I have no idea where anything is—everything's different. And the people here are so awful! What did she do to you?"

"I . . . I guess nothing, really. I mistook her for you, and she . . . she told me that she didn't love me."

"Nick . . . ."

"I believed it, too," he said as he started trying to hold back the sense of hopelessness. "I thought that I'd cracked and that this whole thing was a nightmare; but the more time I spent there the more I thought that this was the way life had always been and that my life with you . . . that my life with you had been a dream. I told you last night that this all seemed too good to be true and when I woke up this morning it seemed as though everything had been." He began running his hands over her side and nosed the side of her face as he painfully recalled what had happened to him since that morning. He held back nothing as he trusted his mate to handle the details.

She did, but she also wept for him profusely. She recounted to him her own time here and included in it everything she'd learned and experienced while here. The one thing that came out in her story was that she sorry that things had been so relatively easy for her. He hushed her and told her not to blame herself. If anything had happened to her on the scale of what had been visited on him he would've been just as devastated. Since their mating last night, he felt himself becoming more protective of her than he ever had been. Not only was she his partner as a peace officer, but as he saw it, they were partners for life. He was glad to hear that she felt the same. It reassured a wounded section of his heart that she'd be there for him and that she was as devoted to him as he was to her. Together they were able to pool together their knowledge of the place. Doing this served to get him back into familiar habits, as though they were working a case, and which essentially they were. A sense of peace and contentedness settled into Nick's heart.

It wasn't long before their conversation died down and they simply lay in each other's presence while kissing, petting and nuzzling—both of them aching to reassure themselves and each other again and again that they were really here. Nick put his tail over his mate and she snuggled her head under his and slowly, they fell into a deep sleep.

-.-.-.-

_ 3:17 PM _

Sgt. Hopps finally stopped in front of a Speedy Care clinic that rested on the edge of a cliff. The place looked abandoned and she wasn't certain she wanted to go near it. Something was off about this place. The parking lot was totally empty and a closed sign was up in the window. She'd been sitting there for the past fifteen minutes or so trying to figure out what to do. The last five hours had been spent driving around Happy Town, locating Nick's apartment, and gathering any information she could. This was her last stop before calling it quits for the day.

She had some contacts whom she'd met on neutral ground and from there the plot seemed to get stranger still. She had no idea what was going on but it seemed as though the whole city had died. What she had learned, insufficient though it was, had surprised her: Every contact she met, every bit of news, every clue, led her here; and now, against her better judgement, she was parked along the side of the corniche opposite the clinic. Only one contact whom she trusted with her life had advised her to stop the investigation. Her direct order from Mayor Pricilla, however, prevented that. She was bound to go; and though she had made calls for backup it seemed they were going ignored.

None of this felt right. Not especially when she saw a short fennec fox standing in the door of the clinic. He turned the closed sign to open. He was collarless and blatantly so.

_ 'That's a lure if I ever saw one!' _

Sgt. Hopps may not have had much information to go on but she knew when she was being hoodwinked. She saw the fennec disappear back into the office.

_ 'Fuck!' _

She huffed and got out of the car, deciding that it would be best to bite the bullet and get this over with. She just reached the office door but stopped short of opening it—her survival instincts were screaming at her not to go. Her paw dropped to her side and she hummed to herself and started around the side of the building instead.

There, she saw a metal guardrail overgrown with vegetation. She reached it and peered over the side. She could barely make out the tops of some warehouses at the bottom of the cliff and spread out along the shore. She pondered to herself for a moment and was so engrossed in thought that she didn't register the car pulling up beside her. She was finally shaken from her thoughts when she heard a car door slam behind her. She turned around to see a koala approaching her.

"Sgt. Hopps!" he called.

"Coal! What're you doing here?"

"You called for back-up, didn't you?"

"Yeah, but you didn't answer. No one did." This was starting to feel hinky.

"Whatcha' lookin' at?"

"Oh," she started, "just these warehouses and the docks on the water's edge." She turned and gestured down.

The blow came as a surprise to her. She crumpled to the ground but struggled to remain conscious when something heavy struck her from behind. She turned over to look up at the koala, a cosh in his paw.

"You know, Pricilla never really forgot what happened with Otterton," he said as he replaced the club on his belt and withdrew his tranq gun. He fired thrice into her chest. "And now, you're paying the price."

Judy gasped in pain and tried to remove the darts but found she was already nearly immobile. She fought the darkness fiercely, willing herself to stay awake and alive though it was a losing battle. A bolt of fear went through her when she felt her quickly-fading body being lifted. She tried to utter a cry for help as Coal lifted her above his head and over the railing. The last sensation she felt before losing consciousness was that of falling as he threw her over the edge.

-.-.-.-

_ 3:48 PM _

Wilde led the way to his office as Mr. Big and his cohort followed. As always, Boris Koslov carried the shrew in his paws as a means of presenting him to his audience in a way that would intimidate those who stood against him.

Wilde unlocked the office door and stepped inside, followed by the others. He noticed as he went to the door to the side room that the cop's phone had been moved and that a new game of solitaire had been started. These things caught his attention but not quite enough to cause him to pause before opening the door to the annex.

The bunny was gone. _The bunny was gone!_ All that lay in front of him was some loose cord and a pair of handcuffs.

"Nicky," came a voice behind him, "you promised me a bunny cop, but all I see before me is an empty chair and some rope."

"And handcuffs," said Koslov.

"She's here somewhere. She's gotta be here! Quick, lock the door!" he called behind him.

Finnick quickly closed the office door and locked it.

"Okay, look everywhere a bunny can hide!" Nick ordered.

"I'm not going to be able to do this thing," said Koslov.

"Right," said Wilde as he began to look around under his office desk. "Finnick, you might have more luck!"

The large polar bear shuffled into the now-cramped side room. He was flanked on either side by Wilde who had just finished checking under his desk, Clawhauser, Finnick; and his two henchmen, Raymond and Kevin.

They began looking around. It was Clawhauser who went to go check behind the curtain. What he saw stunned him. The fox and the bunny were wrapped around each other, sleeping.

"I found her!" he shouted.

Both the fox and bunny shot up as their sleep was instantly disturbed by the sound of Clawhauser's voice. Immediately the curtain was swept away completely by the large polar bear whom she'd seen before.

_ 'Koslov,' _ she thought to herself.

Both she and Nick let out a shout of surprise when they saw everyone who now crowded them and they hugged each other tightly.

Nick's eyes landed on Wilde and he sputtered. "Wha-what?! Carrots what's going on?!"

"Oh, yeah; I may have forgotten to prepare you for how weird it would be to meet your double. Especially when he looks like you in almost every way, but I did warn you."

"Yeah, but Carrots, there's a limit!" He looked from her to the fox. Back to her. Then at the fox again.

The bear knelt in front of them with a thud, becoming suddenly the focus of their attention, and revealed what he was holding in his paws.

There, sitting on a cushioned chair, sat a tiny shrew.

Mr. Big leant forward when he saw the rabbit and narrowed his eyes. "Tell me, now, my dear—who are you?"


	6. The Best Laid Plans

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> The mayor works to set her plans in motion. Will she be successful? The fatal time is drawing near, and the question as to whether they'll be ready to face off remains in play. How will our heroes react when they realise the situation is more dire than it appeared to be at first blush? Only time will tell.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Special Acknowledgement: First and foremost I would like to thank Soildier for his help in preparing this chapter!
> 
> Author's Note: Thankfully, in spite of my writing intensive classes, I've been able to write another chapter of this story for your edification. Future chapters will, unfortunately, be slower in nature, but please bear with me.
> 
> Thank you to all my reviewers for your suggestions and advices and also for your encouragement. It means so much to me.
> 
> Let me know if you have any questions that I could answer or if there's anything that I've left unclear that I need to clarify.
> 
> To those who like my story: you all deserve a hearty thanks from me!
> 
> General Statement: As I stated before, I welcome any and all criticism pertaining to the story. If I miss a bit of grammar here or there let me know so I can fix it. If there's something that strikes you a mistake or an error let me know so that I can fix that, too; and yes, I do fix mistakes that are pointed out to me. Speaking from personal experience, nothing can take me out of a story more than a misspelt word or a grammatical mistake—especially if they're too common. Any other comments, questions, or concerns? Feel free to PM me.
> 
> Disclaimer: This is a work of fanfiction and has no claim whatsoever on the characters of Nick Wilde and Judy Hopps who are the sole property of The Walt Disney Company. In no way have I sought money, monetary value, nor profit of any kind for the writing of this story.

* * *

_  
3:40 PM _

"So it's done?" asked Pricilla, a slight note of delight in her voice. The voice over the phone grunted in the affirmative and she smiled to herself.

All obstacles had ostensibly been dealt with and things could proceed as she'd hoped they would.

"Yeah," replied Coal. "I darted her three times and pushed her off the side of a cliff."

"Spare me the details. Do we have our boys on the inside?"

"I just got a text back from them; they're both in. Savages are starting to arrive, now. A lot of 'em. The whole place is filling up, quick," said the koala as he looked around. The parking lot was crowding rapidly and predators were walking into the clinic in droves.

"That's what I want to hear. By the way, Bellwether's going to oversee it personally along with Rhinowitz."

"Who's working?"

"Doug and Woolter. They're helping set up." She checked a sheet in front of her again. "Remember, after the bomb, the barrels; after the barrels, get out quick."

"And my part?"

"Shoot any guards on the outside. You're going to need to clear a path to the cliff."

"So . . . you're saying we're going right down the side of the cliff?"

The pig put her head in her paws. "Doug said he was working it out."

Coal nodded. "Gotcha'."

"Alright, let me know how things go."

"Later," said Coal. He hung up as a relatively large truck pulled up alongside him. He saw Woolter in the driver's seat. They made eye contact and the ram smiled and gave him a thumbs-up.

-.-.-.-

_ 3:51 PM _

The evening chill of late fall began to settle in as the sun began to set behind the hills. Its orange glow was reflected in the tall building across the water in Animalia. Street lights in Happy Town began to brighten up along the dirty avenues, casting their yellowish-brown and orangish casts along the pavement.

Inside the little side room in Wilde's office, Nick and Judy held each other tightly as they regarded the intimidating crowd of animals surrounding them. They were face to face with Mr. Big who waited for Judy's reply.

Outside the office, the large gathering of chompers in the park stretched from end to end of the grounds between the tributes that connected the warehouses. They milled about and talked amongst each other in a mild roar of voices that ebbed and flowed through the place. They were waiting for orders. For a plan of attack. For assurances that they would be able to survive if a cull were initiated. Anxiously, they waited for the meeting to begin. Anxiously, they waited to hear news of what the opposition were planning.

So here Wilde stood with Mr. Big and Koslov. He wanted to hear from this bunny what she and her fellow prey had in store because, he decided, he wasn't going a minute longer without answers for his safety and the safety of the others here. This had become a life or death situation and he had no desire to play games—he needed to make a plan; for as much as he may have been a central piece—a hub—in the predator subculture, he was just a fox—an animal as unsure of his future as anyone. As far as he was concerned, an attack on city hall and the establishment forces there was long overdue and seemed now to be his only option— _their_ only option. He looked on as the bunny and fox clung to each other tightly.

_ 'Strange,' _ he thought, considering who she was—or at least, who she appeared to be.

"Well, my dear?" asked Mr. Big, "I am a patient shrew, but I do not appreciate silence in the face of challenge. I ask you again, who are you?"

Judy looked at Nick and he looked back. "We have to tell them."

He sighed and nodded, holding her tightly as though he feared they'd take her away from him.

"Okay . . ." she began carefully, "first, bring me my phone."

Finnick scoffed and Wilde tisked.

The shrew hardened his gaze. "There is nothing on your phone that will save you if you do not tell me the truth."

"Please!" she insisted. "What I have to say will be a lot easier if I have my phone. It's too unbelievable to describe without evidence!"

He regarded her for a moment before he nodded. Addressing himself to the room, he asked, "Who knows where her phone is?"

"I'll get it," said Wilde as he walked back to the office to retrieve it.

"While he does that, let me ask you: Are you Sgt. Judy Hopps of the Zootopian Police Department?"

Judy took a deep breath and let it out. "I . . . uh . . . I _am_ Judy Hopps, and I am a police officer or . . ." she looked at Nick " _was_." She looked back at the shrew. "But I'm not the sergeant. And I do not do . . . whatever it is you seem to think I do."

The incredulity was apparent on the faces of all those who surrounded her. She knew her credibility was essentially shot at this point and had been, really, since the whole thing began.

"She's gotta be lying!" exclaimed Clawhauser. "There's no way-" He stopped abruptly when Mr. Big Hushed him.

She looked at Nick. "He . . . he's my mate," she said, gesturing to Nick with a slight blush on her ears.

Wilde returned with the phone and handed it to her, a doubtful look on his face as he tried to evaluate her as a creature. He had heard the exchange from the other room and thought it was ridiculous. But then he couldn't ignore the protective arm the fox had around her back and couldn't miss the soft look he gave her.

She swiped the phone to the menu screen and went to her camera roll, turning it to the side so that the pictures would rotate and enlarge.

"I . . . uh . . . that is, Nick and I," she gestured, "we . . . uh . . . we're not from here."

Mr. Big had stayed quiet as he contemplated what she said. "You're telling me this fox here is your mate?"

She nodded. "And . . . his name is Nick Wilde."

After a quiet few seconds, Wilde barked out a laugh along with Finnick as he sputtered, "That's quite a coincidence, there, but I dou-"

Their laughter died abruptly when the rabbit held up her phone to show a picture of Nick and her naked, though undercover, on the couch together.

Everyone was immovable. Wilde suddenly turned his attention to the fox next to her and looked closely. His face was swollen and too damaged to really make out but he could barely see a resemblance. How could he have missed it! The pictures on her phone, however, were the proof of the pudding: That was him, no doubt about it! His rational mind, on the other hand, was screaming at him that it couldn't be! Her "evidence" could be explained away, he was certain!

She scrolled through photo after photo of the two of them together. Pictures depicting a happier Zootopia. Clawhauser was floored by the memories she had stored on her phone of all of them joined in more cheerful occasions.

She had hundreds more but stopped when Mr. Big asked her to. The shrew was staring at a picture of her at his daughter's baby shower.

"What is this supposed to demonstrate to me?" he asked. He had no idea what to make of the photos. These were things that had clearly never happened so what was the point? The photos, he was certain, proved nothing. The shrew was nothing if not certain about his own reality which meant that the photos, though appearing genuine, _had_ to have been fabricated somehow!

"Uh . . ." began Nick as he tightened his hold on Judy, "I guess what she means when she says that we're not from here is that . . . well, we're not from here. As in . . ." and here he paused to take in a deep breath, "we're from another universe."

The silence was deafening.

Before anyone could say anything, Judy found a video taken on her phone of all of them at another one of Gazelle's concerts. Clawhauser, Nick, and Bogo were all together dancing. The camera turned around a few times to film a few shots of Judy before it was snatched from her paws by Nick in the video who then took a recording of a dancing Clawhauser and Judy.

"So . . ." started Finnick, "you're . . . ?"

"Nick and Judy, but from a Zootopia that doesn't . . . uh . . . actively try to murder you. Also, Nick's a cop and Clawhauser mans the front desk at the ZPD. Also, Nick and I spent last night together. We woke up this morning separated."

Nick nodded. "I really have no idea how we got here," he said, "but I do know that this place isn't the place we came from. Things here are different. People here are evil. I met her . . . her . . . double, I guess," he said as he indicated his bunny, "and she helped me out of being declawed but left me in the alley to fend for myself. I have no idea how we got here, only that we did."

"What you're saying is impossible!" boomed Koslov.

"Then believe this," said Nick as he pulled back the bandage. His whole face could be seen now. The swelling on either side of his head had gone down rather substantially, and though his features were still somewhat off, it was clear that he was a double of Wilde.

"If you wanna think that Carrots here is a twin, you can think that—it's easy to think she might be Sgt. Hopps' sister. But there's no denying this," he said gesturing between Wilde and himself. "We're not twins. We don't even have any siblings."

Wilde gave him a hard look. "What's the name of our high school girlfriend."

"We had three. The one I had for longest was Vixy."

Wilde grit his teeth. "And what happened to her?"

Nick wasn't sure but his counterpart seemed to be bracing himself for something, but he couldn't say what. "She grew out of my league," he replied carefully. "She became a lawyer and then a judge."

Wilde's face fell and his ears pinned back. "She's alive?"

Nick nodded. "Yeah, she is. She's got four kits. The oldest one's name is-"

"Michael."

Nick started. "Yeah, Mike," he said slowly. "How d'you-"

"She always said she was going to name her first kit Michael." Nick wasn't sure why but a pall seemed to have fallen over the gathering.

Wilde looked around at his friends. The reality of his own life was set in stone. He could see its products all around him and stacked up in piles in his office. He was what he was and he had lived the life he'd lived. His mind was screaming at him to deny everything that was being said by either of them.

_ 'The pictures've been doctored!' _ he told himself, _'The footage, faked! The bunny's a twin! The fox is . . .'_ and that was it, wasn't it? Every time he got to the fox his mind had no answer. He looked at the fox, into his green eyes, and was unable to deny the truth he saw in them. He knew what they were saying had to be true because he knew himself—and he recognised in this being before him his _own_ mind and spirit. Wilde was looking into the eyes of a beaten and bloody version of himself who had had things far easier than he, though he recognised something familiar in him—the pain of fear, of rejection, prejudice, of being hated resonated in them both.

Everyone, he realised, had suddenly turned to him for an answer; to seek some direction since it seemed to be so intimately and personally connected with him. His mouth had gone dry and he had no idea how it was that he was even thinking what he was thinking, but there it was:

He licked his chops, opened his mouth, and said, quite to his own disbelieving ears, "I don't think we have any choice but to believe them."

-.-.-.-

_ 3:53 _ _ PM _

Gary stepped out of the lift and made his way to the decollaring booth. A worker there removed his collar and he proceeded to the southernmost end of the park. While suspicious by nature he couldn't help but enjoy the spacious feel of the whole area. The rounded roofs gave a bit of an open feel to the place, though the windows were all closed and padded in order to help soundproof the joint. He was stationed that day with his partner, Larry, and his friend, Garou, at the back of the park. He yawned in a whine as he stepped into the third warehouse some minutes later. This was the second time he'd had to be here with hardly a chance for sleep in-between. Larry had never left, deciding to stay after the ending of the first meeting to facilitate things as they readied for the assembly.

After about a minute of leisurely walking, he saw Larry and Garou chatting together against the far side of the warehouse. He was somewhat surprised when he saw Wilde pop out from behind the roar-a-coaster, presumably from his office, and start looking around furiously. He seemed to catch sight of Garou and run toward him. He couldn't quite make out what he was saying but he could definitely make out the words, "need your nose" and "gotta figure something out" before he and Garou dashed off into Wilde's office.

Gary heard the door slam shut behind him just as he reached his mate. "What was that about?" he asked as he looked back to where they'd disappeared.

"Dunno. Something pretty weird's been going on. I kinda feel like there's something they're not telling us and I don't know what it is."

"You know the meeting starts in a bit," said Gary. "Walk with me?"

Larry nodded and followed as they walked toward a side door in the back of the building.

The park, having been a garage-like warehouse before, had wide gates that could be pulled open to vent the place of harmful chemicals and other dangerous substances that hung in the air. The gates opened at the northern and southern ends of the buildings. Those gates were now used to connect warehouse to warehouse except in the first and second warehouse which opened facing north and south respectively while there were emergency gates installed in each tribute which opened toward the east and the docks.

The pair made their way out onto the shore, facing east. Their winter coats were some natural protection against the chill, but all security officers were wearing long dusters for extra protection.

After a moment of silence, Larry turned to his mate. "What d' _you_ make of this?" He put his paws in his pockets.

Gary chuffed. "I have no idea, but I have a really bad feeling about all of this. I have no idea what's going on but it seems like . . . I dunno. Like we're fighting something unstoppable."

The grey wolf nodded. "I know. It's like, all of a sudden, today was the day. And why today of all days?"

A chill wind began to blow.

"I think-" Gary suddenly stopped mid-sentence as his nose caught something. He snuffled and followed the scent. It seemed to be coming from back behind the park, toward the cliffs.

"What's up, Gary?"

"Shh," he replied as his ears perked to listen. He growled and flattened them and started forward. He paused occasionally to get a better sense of where the scent was coming from before continuing. He got to the wide strip of land between the warehouses and the cliff.

"Gar, if you needed some private time with me you di-" The grey wolf stopped when his eyes landed on something grey and unmoving beneath the cliff and the first warehouse.

Gary had already broken into a run, becoming a blur of white fur as he made his way there.

Larry caught up to him and knelt down to see a rabbit. He sucked in breath when Gary turned the creature over.

"Holy, shit! It's _her_!" exclaimed Larry.

"Oh, fuck. Oh, fuck, man; that bad feeling I got suddenly just got worse!"

"We gotta get her to Nick!"

"Do you think she's alive?" asked Gary

"What the hell do I know? You're closer, can't _you_ take her pulse?"

"I don't need to; I can hear her breathing," he sighed, somewhat relieved.

Larry nodded before sagging. "Oh, what the fuck is going on?" He pulled off his coat and threw it over the bunny. She was positively freezing to the touch.

"Damn," said Larry as he picked her up and started back to Wilde's office, "I really wanted a quick fuck, too!" he finished.

Gary let out a loud laugh as they headed back. "Later, man; later."

-.-.-.-

_ 4:01 PM _

Garou stood and only stared. He couldn't believe what he'd just heard.

Wilde had rushed out to grab him—one of the _very_ few whom he could trust in this situation—only moments ago to get his opinion on something he-didn't-know-what. As much as Wilde trusted his own gut in these circumstances and had discerned to his own satisfaction what the facts of the matter were, he felt he needed confirmation from another outside source. And that's where Garou came in

He'd brought him into the office and explained to him the crazy turn of events, speaking over his objections and obvious incredulity.

Before he had a real chance to question any of this, Garou was quickly ushered into the side room. He'd barely gotten a handle on what Nick had told him. As the story got stranger and stranger he began to seriously consider telling someone that the poor fox was drunk and getting someone else to come out and deliver whatever information had been unearthed.

As he was led into the side room, he first noticed the large crowd of animals there, particularly three imposing polar bears. The white curtain was still dividing the room and Hopps was . . . Hopps was gone! Before he could say another word, Wilde nodded to Clawhauser who was standing near the edge of the curtain. The cheetah nodded back before grabbing the curtain and slowly walking it open from one end of the room to the other. To Garou's surprise, he saw fox and rabbit holding paws tightly and looking at him worriedly. He growled instinctively when he saw who the rabbit was but was sharply reprimanded by Wilde who nevertheless stood back.

Garou saw the fox before him put his arm around the rabbit somewhat protectively. Wilde had told him that he didn't want to say anything about whom he would see once he got into the room: just that he wanted the wolf to smell two animals and give his opinion—regarding what, Wilde was hesitant to say.

The wolf approached them slowly and sniffed the air around them carefully before cautiously sniffing the fox first. He jumped back as though startled and looked at Wilde, an astonished look on his face.

"H-he's you!" he exclaimed loudly.

He turned back to the fox on the bed and continued to look on in surprise before he turned his attention to the bunny next to the vulpine. He took in several sniffs and was unable to stifle a small growl before nodding to himself thoughtfully. He moved in closer to get a better idea of her scent. Again, he stood back and surprise.

Mr. Big who'd been uncharacteristically silent suddenly spoke up. "What is your understanding of their relationship?"

Garou turned around and looked at Mr. Big, having missed him when he first walked in. Hesitantly and with no small amount of trepidation, said, "They-they're mates."

"This is making absolutely _no_ sense," said Finnick, who stepped forward now. His face was a mask of interest in spite of his tone. He looked at the couple on the bed. What he saw between the two of them was undeniable, but it went against all reason—not that he had a problem with mixed marriages, just that it was _this_ fox and _this_ bunny; and not only that but they were fucking copies of the real ones in this universe?!

Finnick was no philosopher and had no real interest in anything other than eking out his own mild existence in whatever way he could. He had never imagined alternatives to his own life, never having had any use for fanciful thinking, and yet now he was presented with the possibility of something new.

Both he and Clawhauser had never considered the option of a Zootopia where things were at least minimally functional; where the police didn't go out of their way to make the lives of preds a living hell. From what Finnick'd been hearing, though, in spite of the fact that their Zootopia was full of its own prejudices, there was a vision and a sense of hope for the future. Here, on the other hand, the authorities were actively working against the interests of predators.

This vision of the future—this ideal of what the city could be—was novel and spoke to the hopes with which the city had been conceived. Now, more than ever, the people in that room felt they had a sense of purpose. The war could functionally act not only as a means to defend against a cull, but serve to rebuild the city from what it was now. This reality wasn't lost on anyone in there as they contemplated the couple before them.

"Are you sure? Is there any room for doubt? Beware that Nicky has vouched for your credibility. Any lie on your part will endanger his credibility, as well."

Garou felt a bit more hesitant, now, but was as sure as ever about what he smelled. There was no faking the bonding scent—the two of them had been mates for ages, from what he could tell. Though, and here he chuckled to himself, they had only recently consummated their relationship.

He nodded slowly at the shrew and said, "I'm pretty sure. I mean-" he amended when the shrew gave him a look, "-to my knowledge, these two are mates. They've been mates for a _while_!" he emphasised.

Mr. Big looked doubtful.

Garou couldn't tell but it seemed to him that the shrew's doubt might stem from the presumptive implausibility of two species being together. An unexpected wave of anger surged through him.

"It can happen!" he shouted angrily, his deep voice drawing everyone's attention.

An uncomfortable silence followed where Kevin and Raymond moved to step around Koslov.

Mr. Big held up a paw to still them.

The wolf fumbled. "I-I'm sorry Mr. Big," he spat out. "It's just that . . . I'm in an interspecies relationship, too. Not only mates but married, too. In secret. And-"

"Young wolf: My reaction is not to your personal . . . proclivities. Rather I was reacting to the young prey who has, until this moment, been obfuscating the facts of her presence here. Her testimony is subject to scrutiny because I cannot afford to make any mistakes. It appears we're getting ourselves into a life and death situation and time is of the essence."

"I'm telling the truth!" said Judy. She was insistent but maintained a respectful tone.

Mr. Big eyed the bunny warily. He read the room and got a sense that the tide was turning toward the two sitting on the bed. In spite of the logical answer that the situation would seem to indicate—that the pair of them were crazy—the ludicrous evidence presented and the confirmation of nearly everyone around him as to the truth of what he were seeing; therefore, could only really indicate one course of action.

"I believe you, my dear. But now we have a problem on our hands: What do we do with you?"

Nick was about to answer when a sharp knock could be heard coming from the door in the office.

"Are you expecting someone?" said Mr. Big as he looked at Wilde who shook his head no and went into the main office to get rid of whoever it was.

He had only barely opened the door before two wolves pushed their way through into the office.

"Hey! Hey!" barked Wilde loudly, his temper rising as he angrily followed after the pair. "What're you doing?! You can't just barge in here!"

"I'm sorry, Boss!" exclaimed the white wolf as he made his way into the side room, "But we have a problem! We found J-" He stopped talking the moment he saw the bunny sitting next to the fox.

"Sgt. Hopps! She's here!" he exclaimed as he turned to the grey wolf next to him in shock.

Lary, Wilde noted, was carrying a bundle in his arms. "You guys can't tell _anyone_!" shouted Wilde.

Gary and Lary gave each other nervous looks. They were beside themselves.

"You can go, now," said Wilde sharply.

"Actually," said Larry, "we can't, I don't think."

Wilde opened his mouth to rebuke the grey wolf when he saw him uncover what he had in his arms.

_ 'Judy Hopps!' _

There was a sudden flurry of action as the rest of the animals there crowded around letting out shouts of confusion as they gathered to see what the hell was going on. At the sight of the sergeant, the confusion as to what to do increased.

"What happened to her? Did you see her around here?" asked Wilde.

"I dunno!" said Gary. "I nosed her around the back side of the park—it was like she'd been leaning over the cliff. Or trying to climb down it or something. She was unconscious when we found her," he finished, gesturing to Larry and himself.

Wilde stepped forward and noticed a dart in her chest. A single dart.

_ 'Police issue . . .' _ he thought.

Suddenly things weren't making sense as nearly as much as they had been. She'd been darted, or so it seemed, by a member of her own force. He grunted as he felt time slipping through his paws. The meeting was supposed to have started already! He could hear through the open door to his office the crowd wondering where on Earth Mr. Big was. Where was Wilde? Clawhauser? Finnick? Anyone?

"Okay," said Wilde as he looked around at everyone, "we have no more time. We have to start the meeting. But first . . ." he took the bunny from Larry's arms.

He set her down on the bed next to Judy and Nick who now jumped off to make room. Wilde carefully pulled out the dart and opened the bunny's shirt to reveal her naked chest. He saw two other wounds next to the dart wound he'd just pulled out.

"Did you see any other darts on the beach?" he asked either of the wolves.

They shook their heads and looked on.

The wounds were clustered together which indicated an experienced shooter. Wilde pulled out from underneath the bed what appeared to Judy to be a tool box. When he opened it, she could see that it was full of medical supplies: syringes, phials, gauze, pills and so on.

She watched as he pulled out a disposable syringe and a phial. He inserted the syringe and withdrew what appeared to be a large amount of fluid.

"What is that?" asked Nick.

"It counteracts the effects of the tranquillizer."

"Why does she need so much?" asked Judy as she looked on, somewhat embarrassed that everyone looking at this bunny now knew what she looked like topless. She covered her chest somewhat defensively. Nick noticed, looked down at her out of the corner of his eye and smirked. Judy saw him and nudged him with her elbow which elicited a small chuckle.

Wilde, somewhat distractedly answered, "She was darted three times. That's really enough to kill her given enough time, for such a small creature." He made the injection slowly into her left arm. She convulsed and Wilde held her down.

"Pretty good," said Nick as he looked on.

"Believe it or not," said Wilde as he looked down at the form in front of him, "I was going to be a doctor at one point before things . . . took a different turn."

There was a comfortable silence that came over the room for a moment before it was broken.

"My friends," said Mr. Big to those in the room, "this meeting, it seems to me, is a bad idea—having us all together like this. I recommend leaving, as I plan to, now. I would adjourn the crowd and warn everyone to avoid any near occasions of breaking the law until we know more."

"What?!" said Wilde as he turned to the shrew.

"Are you sure is a good idea? So many have come and need reassurances," said the bear holding him.

"Koslov," Mr. Big began, "as always I trust your counsel above all others, but even you must admit that with the presence of two police officers who're notorious for destroying our way of life, things are looking more and more dangerous by the minute. There are too many coincidences here and the missing information is a chasm over which I do not feel comfortable traversing. You may stay if you wish to give whatever comfort you can. You know what I'd planned for this meeting as well as anyone."

Koslov nodded and handed him carefully to Kevin who then shuffled out of the room with Raymond following behind.

"Wait, Raymond!" said Wilde, "Where'd you put Mike's trunk?"

"It's still in my van. I didn't know what you wanted me to do with it so I just left it there."

"We'll be leaving by ship, in any event," said Mr. Big. "Water passage at this moment is likely the safest mode of transportation."

"I'll have my men prepare a boat for you," said Koslov who sent a text to Delgato whom he had thankfully managed to get off his normal route for the day. "The ferryman will flag you down and meet you at the docks," he finished.

Wilde looked at Raymond. "Who's taking your car back?" he asked.

"Fangmeyer was driving and had Wolford with him. They were working on the van earlier but I think they're both inside, now."

Wilde nodded and turned back to the bunny who was gradually waking more and more.

Mr. Big made his apologies and walked out with the two bears.

Finnick and Clawhauser followed them out; as did Garou who was headed back to his station. Cevilla was meeting him and he planned to spend some time with her during the presentation. He was stopped in the doorway as Wilde said, somewhat annoyed at the turn of events, "Garou, I want you to go on stage and tell everyone that we'll be starting at four thirty instead. And that plans have changed and that Koslov will be presenting Mr. Big's plans."

Garou nodded and went out.

Wilde stayed behind along with Gary and Larry, and Nick and Judy.

"So . . ." started Nick as Wilde began to redo the buttons on his patient's blouse, "what about us?"

"You guys can leave, if you want, but stay local," he said. "I mean, don't leave the park," he amended. "The beach is nice. Why don't you step out for a bit?"

Nick nodded and looked around for his shirt which he found neatly folded next to the bed. He put it on and draped his arm around Judy's shoulders.

As they stepped out into the park, Nick was taken aback by what he saw: Predators were strolling around freely. The place was positively packed and animals just seemed to be milling about, waiting for the assembly to begin.

He smiled as he looked around. "This place looks like a lotta' fun!"

Judy smiled next to him. "I know! It's like an oasis in the middle of a desert."

They saw ahead of them as Mr. Big and his entourage followed out a side door near the back of the warehouse. They made to go, too, but were stopped when they heard the sound of someone calling them.

"Dad!" shouted Mike as he ran up to Nick.

The older fox turned to see a younger fox run up to him and suddenly stop short and let out a gasp.

"Dad, what happened?!"

Nick looked on in confusion as the teen could only stare at his injuries.

"I'm not your dad," said Nick, somewhat stunned. Judy had _definitely_ forgotten to mention that he had a son in this world.

The boy looked bemused and took a step back. "What . . . ?"

Judy stepped in quickly and said, "What he means is that he's your dad's look-alike! Like . . . for protection! A body double!" The lad looked incredulous. "Your dad's in his office," she finished lamely.

The boy looked on wearily. "How come I've never met you if that's true?"

Nick grinned widely. "Maybe you have and you never knew it."

The lad only looked at him, staring blankly for a moment before breaking into laughter. "Alright," he spoke between gasps of air, "tell dad when you see him that Morris and me're going to the beach."

Judy looked on as the teen walked out the door to the shore.

"Did you wanna see the water? It's really beautiful," she said.

"Let's just have a walk. I just wanna see what _I_ built."

She snorted and nudged his ribs gently as she knew they still hurt. "Not quite. But I guess it's good to know that you have ingenuity. You could've been a doctor."

"But then I wouldn't've met you," he said as he leant down and kissed her.

She kissed him back softly and gently caressed his cheek.

"You're so sweet. I couldn't be happier that you're my partner in anti-crime."

He smiled down at her, offered his arm which she gratefully took, and carefully moved through the park, gently making their way through the large mass of animals.

-.-.-.-

_ 4:07 PM _

The quartet calmly strode across the parking lot, stepping carefully over the bodies of the five guards who lay on the ground. Woolter was in his truck and backing it up to the cliff, following the four slowly across the street.

Coal had waited till all the ferals were inside, leaving only the guards, before taking them out one by one.

"That was some nice shooting," said the rhino as he walked across the asphalt.

The koala smiled. "Thanks, it was nothing really. Like shooting fish in a barrel. Speaking of which . . ." he looked back at the truck, "we should have round two set up in just a bit. It's not that far down," he finished as he looked over the edge of the cliff.

The ram walking next to them nodded and grunted. "Give us twenty minutes. Woolter and me'll have it done."

Bellwether chuckled. "You two are the best."

Rhinowitz chuffed.

"Of course," she added hastily, "none of this would've been possible without your brute strength."

She peered over the edge of the cliff herself and frowned doubtfully. "Where's the sarge?"

The koala looked over the edge. "She should've been right there!" he gestured.

"You think there's someone out there?" asked Rhinowitz.

"There's no way she moved herself," said Coal. "Okay, new plan: I'll go down first and get to the roof of the building. I can do it quick!" he said quickly when Doug seemed about to cut him off. "Then the rest of you guys head down. If anybody's down there who isn't one of ours, I'll pick 'em off. You should have a clear shot to the building that way. While I'm getting over there, somebody needs to throw those bodies over the edge, too." He gestured to the dead guards on the pavement. "Just try not to hit me! You catch that Woolter?" asked the koala as the ram got out of the truck and walked up to them.

He nodded as he joined the group, and the others standing around the koala looked to each other in agreement. It seemed the safest way.

"Okay," said the koala as he shouldered his rifle, "let's get started."

-.-.-.-

_ 4:15 PM _

Morris laughed as Mike playfully shoved him as they walked along the shore.

"I love your dad," said Morris. "This place is the best!"

"Yeah," laughed Mike. "But your dad's cool, too! It was fun that he took us out for lunch."

Morris nodded but couldn't help but notice his friend wasn't as lively as he normally was. "Are you okay?"

"Hmm? What d'you mean?"

"I mean, uh . . . well, you seemed kinda scared when Raymond came to pick us up."

"No I didn't!" said Mike defensively.

Morris eyed his friend wearily. He wanted to say more but didn't. He had a hunch that the fox's fear had something to do not only with the worry that his father might one day end up getting hurt but also had to do with his mother having died when he was just a newborn kit. Losing two parents would be unimaginable and the bear shuddered to consider it

They walked on in silence a while longer.

"Do you ever get worried about your dad?" asked Mike suddenly.

"Sometimes, but not really. I mean, he's huge. I think it'd take a lot to take him down."

Mike nodded to himself. "Yeah . . . . Hey, I got an idea!" he started in a bid to change the subject, "D'you think your dad'd take us out on the water again?"

"Nah, the meeting's starting in a little bit. Actually shouldn't it already have started?" Morris asked as he looked back. "Hey, who're they?" he asked when he saw what looked like a group of four or five animals working on the roof of the warehouse.

Mike followed his gaze and looked west toward the mountains. "Probably just some maintenance workers," he said as he looked on. He turned to the young bear. "If your dad's supposed to be at the meeting, why'd he just go into his boat?"

"He's been here since early. He skipped his nap today and he probably went to go sleep a bit. Someone'll come out to find him."

Mike nodded.

They reached the boardwalk, and in the early gloaming that cast its long shadows about, they made their way from one end of the row of quays to the other, turning up their collars to the cold as they went.

-.-.-.-

_ 4:24 PM _

Wilde had been at the side of the slowly stirring bunny for some time, now. Gary and Lary had left in order to take up their positions in the third warehouse, leaving Wilde alone to tend her. Gradually she'd been becoming more and more conscious. For a start, slurring her words and floating in and out of waking-life and every now and again she would open her eyes. After checking them both with a pen light, he could tell that they were out of focus. As she'd slowly become more and more conscious, he'd had to hold her down in order to keep her in the bed and from trying to get up. He saw the moment when she recognised him: She suddenly jerked to try and move away. She was weak enough still that he could hold her in place, though he was surprised by the amount of strength she carried in her upper body.

She'd stopped moving when she realised that her quick movements were doing nothing but giving her a headache. Her mind was still groggy in that way it was when she took a nap at the wrong time of day and woke up at an odd hour. The pain in her skull was ever-present but was lessened when she stopped trying to move.

"You have a headache because the muscle relaxant in your system slowed down your heart enough that it had an effect on the amount of blood going to your brain. The cold weather would have exacerbated it," he'd said as he looked her over. "The more you move, the faster you heart's gonna beat and that's going to make your head hurt until it gets back to a normal state. Can you drink?"

She didn't know how to answer. She didn't know if she _could_. She felt drained.

Wilde checked under the bed and found an IV bag in a box with some others, brought over the IV pole, and hooked it up to a line, and the line to a fresh needle.

"You sure you can't swallow?" he gave her a sidelong glance.

She opened her mouth and tried to speak but couldn't.

"That'd be a no," he finished.

He took her arm and gently inserted the needle before squeezing the bag to get the liquid flowing.

"The dart toxin dehydrates you. That's another reason for the headache and the grogginess."

The liquid went down the hose line and into her system. Judy felt a cold sensation in her arm. Suddenly, after just two seconds of receiving the saline, her body jerked. Her headache seemed to be fading quickly and the aches throughout the rest of her body seemed to ease away.

After several minutes of careful observation, he took a step back and was about to leave to go oversee the meeting when he heard her gasp from the bed.

"Conspiracy . . ." she said.

He came back in the room. "What did you say?"

"Conspiracy . . ." she wheezed again, "danger . . . something . . . wrong . . . ." She tried to sit up but he gently pushed her back down.

Could he interrogate her now? He had to take a chance. "What do you know about what's happening here?"

"Not sure . . ." she started. "Someone's been misdirecting me . . . . Mayor wanted you brought in. Don' know why . . . ."

"You have to have some idea!" growled Wilde. "What charge was I-"

"She said you were the one behind the feral animals." She still spoke weakly, though at least now it seemed to be in complete sentences.

Wilde snarled at her. "That's just a myth! Some propaganda to let them—let _you_ —hate us!" He finished speaking but still rumbled in his chest.

She gently shook her head and looked at him, taking hold of his arm. She had a surprisingly strong grip for having just come out of a tranq-sleep. Perhaps the antitoxin was better than he thought.

"It's not a myth!" she said insistently. "I've seen it."

"There's no way-"

"I've _seen_ it!" she said and tried to sit up.

Wilde had to apply a bit more force to get her back down on the bed.

"You have to have been mistaken."

She slumped back sadly. "That's what this is all about. If you don't accept what I'm saying you're not going to be able to figure out what's happening. It all starts and ends with this: animals—predators—have been going feral and I don't know why. We—Bogo and I—had suspected that there was some sort of contagion here in Happy Town but all of the transformations were taking place in Animalia. We further suspected that there were someone—here, specifically—who were the epicentre of the whole thing. Someone who were spreading it."

"And you're saying you and the whole police department are being led to think that that someone was me?"

She nodded slowly. "So you see: I came here based on that case. If that case is all just a big lie, why would I have wasted my time coming down here?"

Wilde looked down at her. "It's not true," he insisted. It couldn't be true.

"It is true." She cocked her ears. "There a lot of animals here?"

He nodded slowly.

She chuckled to herself. "You know, pack behaviour is illegal . . . ." She trailed off as a sudden thought occurred to her.

Wilde scowled in response to her comment but was taken aback when she sat up quite suddenly. He pushed her back down as she gripped her head painfully.

"That's what this is about! It's a conspiracy!"

"What're you talking about?" he asked as he pushed her back down.

She pushed his arms away and jumped up. "I have to get out of here!"

"Hey!" he shouted as he tried to push her back.

She forced her way and hopped off the bed, trying to ignore the extraordinary pain in her head. He grabbed her arm as she tried to dart forward. She wrenched herself free and darted out of the room. Wilde followed quickly, trying to catch up with her but there was very little chance he was going to catch her. Not only had evolution prepared her but she'd had training.

He shouted after her as she dashed out of the room. He followed after her as she tried making her way to one of the exits along the side. She skidded to a stop quickly and fell on her hindquarters when she saw Garou was manning it. He turned to look at her and it seemed that he didn't quite know what to make of her.

"Do _not_ let her out that door!" shouted Wilde as he chased after her.

Garou's head perked up and looked over her head to see Wilde as he chased after her. Garou looked back at her, seeming to see her for the first time. He growled and made to chase after her.

"No! I'll deal with her; _you_ stay put! Make sure the exits are covered" Wilde shouted as he chased after her.

She jumped up and started running back toward Wilde. She dove beneath his legs, tripping the fox in the process, and ran, threading her way through the crowd of people. There were several exits in the tributes that led out. She saw that they were manned, too and kept going. She ran through the second warehouse until she got to the first.

"Fuck!" shouted Wilde as he gave chase. "Someone, stop that bunny!" he shouted loudly. No one was listening. He _had_ to get their attention. "Stop that bunny, she's Judy Hopps!"

He knew it was a bad idea the moment the name slipped from his tongue.

At the sound of that name, many preds standing nearby turned to see the fox chasing after the rabbit. After a few stunned moments several in the crowd who recognised her gave loud shouts of recognition.

"It's her!"

"It's Judy Hopps!"

"She's here to arrest us!"

"The police are here, run!"

"Get her!"

In very short order the word spread through the crowd. As the rabbit ran she could hear the shouts behind her; could see the looks on the faces of those animals who turned to see her as she dashed by.

She held in her emotions as suddenly several paws started reaching for her. Claws, growls, and snarls followed her as everyone there seemed to become aware of her presence.

She could see the wall of a ticketing booth, could see the exit and, behind the counters, what appeared to be an elevator shaft. She was nearly out when she was suddenly tackled from behind.

Her head cracked on the ground and her breath left her in a rush. She grunted and was hauled up drunkenly. She turned around to see Wilde holding her. Wait, not Wilde! This fox looked like him but had been severely beaten.

_ 'It's the fox from this morning!' _ she realised suddenly.

"Oh, shit," she said drunkenly.

"Yeah, 'Oh, shit,' is right," said Nick calmly as he looked down at her. He turned her to Judy who was standing nearby. "This is her."

Judy looked at the bunny before her. She looked like her in nearly every respect but there was something harder in her features, a sharpness to her violet eyes.

"You . . ." Judy trailed off.

She never got the chance to finish her thought as Wilde, followed by several other animals, broke out of the crowd. While the animals were taken aback at the sight of two Hoppses, Wilde's calm about the situation seemed to placate them, feeding them some nonsense about them merely being doppelgängers.

Wilde was breathing heavily and looked between the fox and his mate, to the bunny Nick was holding onto. He watched with some hesitancy as Judy came over and took one of Hopps' arms from . . .

_ 'I need to think of a name for this fox.' _

"Uh . . . Pi, you got this?" he said, testing out a name.

Nick looked up at him. "I think just P sounds better. Like Q from James Bond."

Wilde snickered. "Okay, then. P it is. So . . . you got it?"

"I think the two of us can handle her."

"Please . . . I have to get out. Something's gonna happen," slurred the rabbit.

"Take her to my office. I have to try and calm down this crowd," he said as he looked around. Several gawkers were standing around and many voices could be heard calling out in confusion. Things had gotten too ramped up and the large gathering seemed to be panicking somewhat.

Time to go diffuse the situation as best he could. He sent a quick text to Koslov who had probably ducked out to go hide in his boat.

He needed to defuse the situation quickly.

-.-.-.-

_ 4:28 PM _

The sun was nearly set and the onset of civil twilight allowed a few stars in the sky to become visible. The reddish haze that tinged the sky was fading into a dark purple and the autumn cold set in.

Bellwether shivered in reaction to the chill and finished texting back one of the two inside men. She sent them a warning to leave since it seemed everything'd been set. She looked up as Woolter walked up to her.

"Alright, Boss, we managed to get the bomb in place," he said. The ram and his partner stepped up to Rhinowitz and Bellwether who'd been busy carefully loading four large drums onto a trolley.

It was getting on and it was going to be dark in a matter of minutes. They had wanted to do this as close as they could tonight in order to maximise the element of confusion. Twilight was slowly overtaking the place, and a wind seemed to sweep in from across the water.

Doug and Woolter, with the aid of Coal's small hands, had just finished loading the charge and placed the incendiary device at the southern end of the second warehouse and now stood shuddering in spite of their fleece in the cold. The four barrels had been situated at the northern end of the rounded roof so as to allow enough space between them and the blast area. As an extra measure of protection, they had all donned bulletproof vests and other protective gear and clothing along with noise cancelling earmuffs.

"Good," said the rhino. "Now we're gonna need you two to back away. _You_ need to leave now, though, Coal. Once the blast goes off," he said to the two rams, "the only thing you need to do is wheel the barrels into the hole and get out of there as fast as you can!" finished the rhino.

Coal grinned. "Let's make some ferals."

-.-.-.-

_ 4:29 PM _

Wilde slowly made his way back to the dais from the ticketing booths as Nick and Judy held on to a struggling Hopps. He needed to inform the crowd what Mr. Big had decided. A full assault on city hall and the police force was a heavy task to undertake, but they had to do it. It was high time for the rebellion which now seemed inevitable. Everyone in the city was to be texted in order to brace for the assault and make preparations for a potential siege.

They had all barely made it to the second warehouse when amid the chorus of voices, Judy and Hopps both stilled, perked up their ears, and looked toward the ceiling.

"What's the matter?" asked Nick, seeing his mate's sudden confusion.

"I . . . I'm not sure," she started, "but I think someone's u-"

They saw the explosion before they heard it: A white-orange flash whose impressive heat nearly burned them. The blast was deafening when it arrove seconds later. Judy, Hopps, Wilde, and Nick couldn't see from their vantage point exactly what had happened, but they definitely felt the concussion and the whoosh of air that precipitated the explosion at the far end of the second warehouse that sent bits of glass and shrapnel flying in every direction but, most devastatingly, at the people standing below it.

All the animals there bent their ears back painfully as the echo of the explosion resonated loudly throughout the park. The predators in the second warehouse were all blown to the ground as an intolerable heat blew shards of roofing at them. Those unharmed and still conscious after the wreckage were stunned to see that the roof of the second warehouse, though made of metal, had been shorn open through the force of the blast. The scent of singed fur and burnt flesh seemed to immediately fill the air while smoke and debris fell in large chunks on the masses below.

In the confusion that followed several predators suddenly started rushing toward the entrance to the park. Wilde, Nick, Hopps, and Judy were forced to the front of the first building and even picked up and ran, managing to make it through the crowd only to be forced up against the ticketing booths, in the swell of bodies that immediately pushed forward in an ardent desire to escape.

Finnick, who'd been at the decollaring booth, to his credit jumped up on the counter and shouted loudly into the intercom for calm. He directed Clawhauser and several other workers to man the emergency exits.

While this was being done, another sound met the ears of the animals still trapped in the second warehouse. Something on the roof of the second building was scraping loudly and seemed to be edging further and further toward the blasthole in the ceiling. Suddenly, through the hole, there fell what appeared to be four individual drums, one after the other, of what might have been oil for all anyone knew. They landed on top of several mammals in the midst of the crowd who now screamed as a few were crushed.

Upon impact, one drum burst open and what appeared to be a purple fog seemed to bloom from it. It quickly engulfed the area in front of the fleeing mammals. A current of wind swept it away from the front of the building and back toward the third warehouse.

Then a second drum exploded.

Then a third.

Then a fourth.

Though the view was obstructed, Wilde leant forward as the screams behind the veil of purple vapour increased and mingled with the sounds of what he thought were growls and roars. He was suddenly gripped with a profound sense of terror as the screams and pleas for help seemed to increase. He turned to a still groggy Sgt. Hopps and growled.

"What is this? What did you do?!"

"I didn't do anything!" she shouted back before gripping her head painfully.

_ 'Bad idea,' _ she thought.

"What's that purple stuff?!" he shouted.

Judy gripped Nick's hand and squeezed it tightly as she turned to her mate with fear-filled eyes. "Nick!" she exclaimed in a horrified tone.

Nick, equally fearful, shouted loudly "We need to get out of here, now!" to everyone within the sound of his voice.

Wilde turned to the couple and shouted back, "You two! You know what's going on?!"

Before either of them could answer, Sgt. Hopps spoke from behind them. "It's nothing! I can smell it from here!"

Wilde turned to her. "Well?!" he shouted in his confusion, the crowd of preds swelling around them.

"I recognise the scent! It's just midnicampum holicithias."

"What the hell is that?" he questioned.

"It's just a pesticide!"

"Pesticide?!"

"Relax!" she shouted. "It's not lethal in mammals!" she finished.

"But it does have the ability to make them go savage!" said Judy, quickly.

Wilde turned to her and his jaw dropped. "What?" said both Hopps and him in unison.

"We're in a room full of animals who're going savage! We have to get out of here now!" she shouted as both she and Nick began backing away from the fog as swirls of it seemed to edge through the tribute and into the first warehouse, headed in their direction.

"We don't do that!" shouted Wilde. "How long will it take for you to-"

"It's not about that!" shouted Judy and she began to turn away as the crowd rushed forward. "We-"

She was suddenly cut off when a tiger came leaping forward with a snarl from the fog: its jaws open, its claws outstretched, as it began attacking several members of the crowd in front of them who screamed in terror as the creature tore at them. The feline was followed by several other animals—a wolf, a lion, another wolf! They kept coming and the voices screamed more loudly in horror, terror, and surprise as feral animals began leaping out of the purple haze with greater and greater frequency!

As the fog seemed to reach the animals on their side, Wilde let out a cry of terror when he witnessed the transformation taking place right before his eyes. The transformed immediately set upon those around them, even others who'd turned!

Judy screamed and turned away at the sight of blood. She let out a gasp when suddenly she was picked up. Nick carried her to the side of the ticket booth and threw her up on top of one of the awnings that roofed the ticket booths. He seized Finnick from the top of the counter to throw him up, stretching the intercom cord as he did. Wilde took a chance and climbed up himself who then, in turn, began helping up as many as he could.

Sgt. Hopps, was pulled up by Judy and both of them then began hauling up as many predators on the ground as they could.

Finnick shouted loudly into the mic amid the shouts and screams for the emergency doors to be opened.

-.-.-.-

On the opposite side of the park, Garou and Cevilla were beside themselves. They had no idea what it was they were seeing as the horror unfolded before them. Hearing the order from Finnick for the emergency gates to be opened, Garou fought his way through the swarming mass of bodies to a red emergency switch in the corner of the third warehouse. He put in his key, turned it, and pushed the red button right below it. Immediately all the emergency doors installed in every tribute leading from warehouse to warehouse opened, including two large ones on either side of the park. Doors as large as those to a hangar were pulled apart with a loud clank which resulted in an immediate surge forward as people sought to escape. The thrust knocked Cevilla and several others over, and she cried out in pain as she and several others were stepped on in the immediate push that followed. Garou saw her fall and shouted for her even as he was swept away in the confusion. He was shoved to the side and landed hard on the concrete foundation outside the park and grunted as his wind left him.

He struggled to get up again as he heard several screams. He turned and saw to his horror a young otter get tackled and mauled by a wolf. He heard the young male let out a scream of pain as blood gushed from a wound on his shoulder. Immediately, Garou pulled out his tranq gun and shot the wolf twice. He turned to a feral lion and shot him thrice. Then he turned . . . and turned . . . and turned!

_ 'Shit!' _

There were too many of them! They were everywhere and attacking from all sides! He fought forward and started taking out as many of the ferals as he could.

-.-.-.-

Wilde and Hopps worked frantically to pull up as many as they could. Ticketing booths were knocked over as mammals rushed to the exits that all opened at once and pushed out toward the docks and the water.

Finnick in the meantime, abandoning the intercom and calls for order, led as many as he could across the tops of those ticketing booths which still stood to a ladder leading to a catwalk above the fray. It, in turn, led to an access tunnel that ran up along the side of the elevator shaft, providing an exit all the way to the top of the cliff and through the clinic. He had a worker lead the way who knew how to open the hatches to the tunnels and who was aware of the safety procedures for the park. A constant stream of preds followed after them as the twin foxes and bunnies worked tirelessly to help animals to the tops of the booths.

It didn't last for too much longer, though. When it was clear that more than half of the crowd were ferals and the fog was coming too close for comfort they all quickly abandoned what they were doing and ran for the ladder themselves followed by several other animals who were able to climb up to the roofs on their own steam.

Judy ran as she never had in her life, hearing the yowls and screams of animals behind her. She never stopped and didn't dare look back. Sgt. Hopps was the only one of their group beside Finnick who was ahead of her.

Judy didn't know how she was going to get out of this. She was certain she was going to die. It was all a whirlwind in her mind but before she knew it she was up the ladder, then across the catwalk, then up the dark shaft, then into the hall of the clinic!

_ 'I right back where I started!' _ she shouted to herself. Then, before she knew it she was in the parking lot where she was met once again by screams of terror. She ran but was suddenly jerked in another direction as someone grabbed her paw.

"This way!" shouted Wilde as he dragged her along. She shrieked as several animals in front of her were suddenly set upon and tackled by the vicious beasts who suddenly jumped from over the cliffs to reach them.

She was suddenly yanked in another direction. First one way! Then another! She ran blindly, pulled along by Wilde until she felt herself being shoved into a vehicle. She looked around as Nick and Hopps were crammed in as well, the reddish brown interior of the van filling her vision as she looked up at the roof. She turned to the side and saw Clawhauser in the passenger seat with Wolford at the wheel who turned to look at them all as they piled in.

Wilde stood outside, gripping the door frame. "Drive! Drive! Drive!" he shouted vehemently at Wolford, who'd already started the engine. Wilde pulled away quickly and made to slam the door.

"Wait! Where're you going?!" shouted Hopps.

"To find my son!"

"It's too dangerous!"

"Fu-" he shouted as his rebuke was cut off:

He was caught off guard when Fangmeyer suddenly appeared from the rear of the seatless van and yanked the fox into the back with them and slammed the door shut. The fox growled and fought him as the van began to pull away, bangs, scratching, and growls emanating from where he'd stood moments before as ferals attacked the side of the vehicle.

"Let me go! Let go of me you son of a bitch! I need to get to my son! Get the fuck off me!" He struggled and snarled fiercely to no avail against the wolf as desperation took hold of his rationality. He let out a roar of frustration as he fought; his continual pleading for the van to return going unheeded as they sped off.

-.-.-.-

Garou turned and started running when he saw the purple mist begin to change even fleeing predators into ferals. It swept out of the open doors as currents of air flowed through the vented warehouses, carrying the gas down toward the waterfront.

He pushed his way back through the crowd, back toward the building. He had to find Cevilla!

He turned when he heard her voice crying out behind him. He saw that a young mountain lion had her by the paw and was running with her down to the shore.

_ 'To the docks!' _ he quickly realised.

It seemed as though many others had thought the same thing, seeking to escape on the boats there. Others behind him took to scaling the traitorous rock wall to escape; though they, too, were soon pursued by ferals. He turned and broke into a full run as he caught up to his wife and the mountain lion who'd helped her.

He took the doe's paw when he saw Koslov's boat and headed toward the jetty in which it'd been docked. He ran as quickly as he could in that direction shouting behind him to the mountain lion to follow him. He managed to run down the dock as several others began to crowd onto it, a large swarm of ferals in pursuit.

"What's going on?!" shouted Koslov as Garou and Cevilla made it aboard.

"The purple gas!" shouted Garou. "They're all going feral!"

Koslov's night vision was second to none and when he came out of the superstructure to get an unobstructed view of the shore he was taken aback by what he saw. Suddenly fully awake he tore around to the stern, dashed into the wheelhouse, and started the boat.

"Wait! There are people still coming aboard!" shouted Garou as he followed him.

"We have to hurry, my friend. If this is as you say we need to leave, now."

Back on the poop deck animals were shoving each other off while still others sought to fight their way below deck in order to make room for more. It appeared now to all of those standing on the deck that the beach had been overwhelmed by ferals!

Several who were on board screamed and shouted for Koslov to leave as many of the ferals were now headed toward them. The boat pulled out, dragging the gangplank down the dock till it was knocked loose by a pillar. Several preds still making their way up screamed and shouted as they were sent crashing into either the dock or the water below them.

Koslov grit his teeth and shifted to go as fast as he could while the engines slowly warmed up and drove. "Tell all passengers to get below deck!" he shouted as Garou looked out at the dock. The wolf winced and shuddered, turning away as even the docks were soon overwhelmed by ferals. Sucking in a breath of air he set his purpose before him and went as steadfastly as he could to the aft section of the boat. He told everyone he could to get below deck and they obliged, shuffling down into the lower cabins one by one.

Garou looked back at the fading shore behind him and groaned as he fell to his knees. He heard footsteps behind him and turned as he recognised the sound of his wife's hooves. He felt her put an arm around him.

"How many?" he asked, his voice raw and gravelly-sounding from overuse.

"What . . . what d'you-"

"I mean how many did we let on?! How many . . . how many did we . . . did we . . . ?"

She knew what he was asking. "I'm not sure, but I think I counted . . . Fifty-two, not counting us." The number seemed so small and she was on the verge of tears.

Garou growled. "We should've stayed."

"Yeah? And done what? Waited for that . . . whatever the hell it was . . . to get us too? Whatever that was back there it could have gotten the both of us and we could have ended up killing each other!" she insisted, raising her voice in fear. She sank down beside him and tightened her hold around his shoulders.

"But it didn't. We're alive," he bit out.

"I know." She leant into his shoulder and wept into it. "I know!" she shouted through sobs. She knew exactly what he was feeling. They sat together quietly as the warehouses faded behind them, the whelms of guilt overtaking them as they embraced each other. She pondered sadly the awful realisation that he must've seen the faces of his friends in some of those whom he'd darted and left behind.

"I mean . . ." she said haltingly, "you can't— _we_ can't—blame ourselves for wanting to live." She said the words but didn't believe them.

He'd seen his comrades transform right before his eyes; still others he'd seen attacked by ferals, and the scent of blood and fear still burnt in his nose—even at this distance.

They helped each other up and looked about to see that there were other boats in the water on either side of them that had managed to get away in time, also full to the brim with passengers.

Slowly and somewhat unsure, the two of them made their way into the superstructure and down below deck to find an empty berth.

-.-.-.-

As the van sped along, Wilde finally calmed to the point where Fangmeyer felt safe letting him up. The fox popped up quickly, stood, staggering a bit before he was able to walk straight, and slowly made his way to the back of the van. There were scattered tools on the floor, there, where Fangmeyer'd been working earlier. They continued on the corniche road, and as they drove along an edge that seemed to bend east along the mountain, full view of Wild Times could be seen in the distance below the cliffs through the two large panes in the rear doors of the vehicle. The fox's keen eyes could see that piers themselves had been overwhelmed by feral savages, and he bit his lower lip as his mind ran away with dark thoughts. He let out a shaky sigh, not wanting to think what he was thinking, but a father knew:

"He was down there . . . wasn't he?" he said quietly as he saw the crawling docks.

It was deadly quiet in the van.

"Wasn't he?" he asked again, somehow needing to hear someone say it.

Everyone knew he meant his son. They could only look at each other as they sat, unmoving.

"Wasn't he . . . ?" He was breaking.

_ 'Say it! Say it, damn you! Someone say it!' _ he thought vehemently.

Judy, who'd been silent up to this point, swallowed tearfully. "I . . . uh . . . he wanted to go down to the docks . . . to hang out with Morris . . . ."

No one moved. No one blinked. The silence of those initial moments of terrible knowing seemed to suppress absolutely everything in the van. Wilde was still for a beat before emitting a low growl that suddenly turned into a cry of anger so loud it reverberated through the whole van. He began punching the side of the van, letting loose his fury and pain, as a profound sense of loss and hopelessness clouded his mind. He looked around, his eyes casting about for something large and finally landed on a heavy-looking wrench and picked it up.

"God! Fucking! Damn it! God! Fucking! Damn it! God! Fucking! Damn it!" he shouted again and again as with each blow he hammered the side of the vehicle, setting upon its metal frame with all the hate, rage, and sorrow that burned in him like a roaring wildfire, leaving dents as he shouted and cried out against it before dropping the tool at his side when he felt himself burn out. He breathed in and out heavily for a few moments before covering his eyes, roughly tearing his claws through the fur on his head.

He crumpled and collapsed on the floor of the van, his shoulders heaving for a few seconds before his composure dissolved and desperate sobs overtook him. He held them in as much as he could but was unable to prevent the others from seeing the depths of his resignation.

Fangmeyer took a chance and scooted over to him and put his arm around him and spoke haltingly through tears. "H-hey . . . w-we don't know-"

"Don't!" shouted Wilde, suddenly furious. "Don't you dare! You saw the coast as well as I did! You saw those . . . you saw how the coast was . . . !" And then he lost it as the pain swept through his being, his tears flowing profusely, now. "Oh God . . . oh, God . . ." he said weakly as he leant along the side of the van. "Do you think he . . ." and then he broke off and covered his face as the thought caused him to dissolve once more into tears.

He wouldn't dare let himself hope. He wouldn't be able to take it if he built up his hopes only to have them broken. But maybe there was something he could do! He suddenly sat up, pulled out his phone, and started texting his son furiously, sending message after message. Because God damn it, his spirit in spite of his despair couldn't help but hope for some miracle.

_ 'No! No! No! This can't be the way it ends!' _ his mind shouted. He was frantic, texting everyone he could asking for his son. He would stop occasionally as his fears overcame him and break into weeping before becoming manic again and typing furiously.

Judy had turned away and had been crying softly into Nick's side. He petted her carefully and watched his counterpart furiously message everyone he could for news of his boy. The silence was deafening and was broken by Wolford in the front seat.

"Uh . . . should we initiate the universal text?"

Wilde didn't look up from his phone. "Do whatever the fuck you want." His tone was dejected. He didn't care anymore.

Wolford gulped and nodded to Clawhauser next to him. Clawhauser, Finnick, and Fangmeyer started texting and sent out the warning to everyone in the city to evacuate as quickly as they could. Ferals were not only at the docks but had successfully managed to scale the edge of the cliff and were escaping into Happy Town itself.

It was hard for everyone in the vehicle to contemplate the profound defeat of that moment. The lights of Zootopia shone brightly and beautifully in the fading sunlight, twilight eventually causing them to stand out in relief. As for the animals in the van: behind them, before them, and all around them lay, by contrast, a darkened Happy Town whose skyline was dotted by dim tenement lights spilling a brief flash of warmth out into the air before being hidden by smog, dissipating into the night time.


	7. About-Face

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Judy comes up with a temporary band-aid that would allow the group to take a moment to rest and might also give them some relative protection, but how will the rest of the group take it?
> 
> And what about Hopps? It seems to Judy's discerning eye that there's more to her beneath the surface, but what that might be, let alone her motivations, remain a mystery.
> 
> Now, what only remains to be seen is whether they can get to safety in time to regroup.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Special Acknowledgement: First and foremost I would like to thank Soildier for his help in preparing this chapter!
> 
> Author's Note: I know it was a long time coming for this chapter. It'll be a long time coming before the next one tooo, sadly. However, rest assured, those of you who enjoy this, that I am working on upcoming chapters and the story is continuing—just at a slower rate, now.
> 
> Thank you to all my reviewers for your suggestions and advices and also for your encouragement. It means so much to me.
> 
> Let me know if you have any questions that I could answer or if there's anything that I've left unclear that I need to clarify.
> 
> To those who've booked my story, and to those of you who've enjoyed it: you all deserve a hearty thanks from me!
> 
> General Statement: As I stated before, I welcome any and all criticism pertaining to the story. If I miss a bit of grammar here or there let me know so I can fix it. If there's something that strikes you a mistake or an error let me know so that I can fix that, too; and yes, I do fix mistakes that are pointed out to me. Speaking from personal experience, nothing can take me out of a story more than a misspelt word or a grammatical mistake—especially if they're too common. Any other comments, questions, or concerns? Feel free to PM me.
> 
> Disclaimer: This is a work of fanfiction and has no claim whatsoever on the characters of Nick Wilde and Judy Hopps who are the sole property of The Walt Disney Company. In no way have I sought money, monetary value, nor profit of any kind for the writing of this story.

* * *

  
The drive was as interminable as the silence that pervaded the van. The quiet seemed to penetrate into the very minds and hearts of the vehicle's occupants as the shock of sadness and horror to which they'd been witnesses arrested any deep thoughts they might've had. The only thing that seemed to fuel Wolford as he drove northward, having by now left Happy Town and the lights of Zootopia far behind, was the desire to get the hell away from what they'd experienced.

They were running away.

Everybody knew it.

And though it felt cowardly, there was a prevailing sense that there was nothing left for them in the city—even as a tremendous sense of guilt began to envelop them, forcing them to think of everyone whom they were leaving behind without staying to help.

And so what?! Was there anything  _really_  holding them back? The city didn't want them there: They'd been tortured, massacred, and hated! The relentless discrimination was enough to bear as it was but the fact that what amounted to an open season had just been declared on them closed the matter definitively.

To Hell with it!

But even as they all thought these things, they all knew that they were going to have to go back—and they knew that things were likely to get a lot worse before they got better. Still, they hid that thought away as though it were essentially non-existent. The hesitancy to return was not merely a matter of resentment—there was a very real and visceral fear that had formed in reaction to what they had seen. In their minds eyes, they could still see the predators jumping out of that mist! The sight of that tiger, its yellow eyes burning as it roared, sharp claws outstretched, its dagger-like fangs gaping wide . . . ! That tiger along with all the other predators caught within that mist had become Death.

No! Returning was the unthinkable thought—and no one, in fact,  _did_  think it. Not consciously. It was a feeling—a terrible gnawing in the gut—that found itself at a loss for words.

Hopps was the sole exception to the general feeling in the van. She knew she was going to have to go back: She was duty bound. She'd been silent long enough, she felt, but knew that her very presence amongst the predators here was an affront to their sensibilities which was why she was hesitant to speak up in the first place; and yet, she knew she had to.

She cleared her throat, in so doing startling many in the van out of their reveries.

Nothing but the pitch-blackness of the road lay ahead of them. They were in open country now, and the eerie sense of solitude had seeped into the very bones of those present.

She licked her lips and braced herself for what she had to say. "We have to go back."

The sentence hung in their midst like a corpse at the end of a noose. She had expressed The One Thought. The ill-feeling in the car increased ten-fold as the sudden confrontation with reality lay before them, impressing upon them the terrible events that had transpired only moments ago—or so it felt: What they thought had been the subject of mere superstition, legend, and propaganda had stared them right in the face—Ferals! Whatever had happened, it had occurred at the heart of their culture. The floors of the place they had come to associate with their sense of fun, joy, and freedom—the only freedom they'd experienced save when they were very young children—had now had its halls and floors soaked with the blood of friends and neighbours, its air filled with the stench of death and burning flesh. Even the screams of horror still resounded in the ears of those present, echoing through their skulls!

The ferals had escaped into Happy Town itself, and the travellers feared going back not only because of the hammer that City Hall was certain to bring down swinging on every predator there but also because they feared those creatures that had at one time been their friends. All of those who had been present in the warehouses save for those on one extreme end of the park or the other had most certainly been transformed or killed. Or both.

"We're not going back," said Wolford as he let out a sharp laugh of incredulity.

Their path had eventually led them down the slopes and back up some others as they now drove through a pine forest that sprawled before them.

"Maybe not," said Judy, speaking up next to a dozing Nick, "but we have to figure out where we're going. Nick . . . I mean,  _Wilde_  . . . is wanted back in Zootopia. If he's lucky, they'll just assume he died in the building. We can't just drive. We need a place to hide, and we need to stop someplace so we can work this out."

They wouldn't get anywhere if they didn't keep their wits about them. They'd been driving more or less northward with the sole aim of escaping the horror behind them. Their focus had been such that no one had really given much thought to  _where_  they were going or what they were even going to do beyond the next day or two.

Hopps' breaking the silence had stirred Judy from her from her mental shut-down—her mind having stopped doing other things as it worked to process what it had experienced in the space of what had amounted to only a few short minutes of her life. She agreed with Hopps that they needed to go back, but not for the same reasons. Where Hopps, she reckoned, wanted to return in order to continue on with her work at the ZPD, Judy had a different plan in mind. A preliminary scheme that needed to be fleshed out, but they needed to stop and talk things through.

"And you can shut the hell up, too!" growled Wolford from the front seat as he tried to spy Judy in the rear-view.

"You mind running that past me one more time?" asked Nick as he suddenly perked up, tightening the hold around his bunny.

"And that goes double for you, preyfucker!" snarled Wolford. "You know Fangmeyer and me saved your life? And turns out you've been fucking the sister of the cunt who beat you up? We  _shoulda_  left you in that alley. Bringing you to the park was how they fuckin' knew where we were. You deserved it, fox! You fuckin' deserved it!"

Nick started angrily and was about to retort when he saw Clawhauser put his arm on the wolf's shoulder. The lupine turned slightly, not quite taking his eyes from the road, to see Clawhauser shaking his head gently. "You don't know what we know. She's with us. So is he."

Wolford baulked, his eyes rolling slightly in disbelief. "What about you, Finn? Are you-"

"Leave 'em alone," said Finnick definitively. "Besides, she's right: We need to work out where we're going before we go another mile."

Wolford chuffed but acquiesced begrudgingly.

He looked for and found a wide scenic shoulder whose overlook opened out on a beautiful valley dotted with houses far below. Their humble lights could be seen glimmering in the hills and woods for miles, it seemed.

The fresh air was quiet and terribly still—but not awkwardly or fearfully so, as such silences might sometimes be. Here, instead, was a gentle silence—one that prompted a feeling of calm and peace.

They got out of the van, all save Wilde who now sat with his back against his son's trunk: It had never been unloaded from the van and had been pushed up lengthwise against the right side of the vehicle's interior.

Judy and Hopps shivered in the bitter cold. Everyone else, it seemed, had a marginally thicker winter coat which seemed to help them with the chill.

"Now I  _know_  you've been living in Zootopia," said Finnick as he stepped up next to Nick.

Nick cocked his head. "Since I told you that it's where I live I'm shocked you were able to figure it out."

Finnick chuckled. "What I mean is that if you'd been living in Happy Town you'd definitely have a winter coat. Only mammals in Zootopia can maintain a spring coat year-round. Climate walls and all that." He nodded to himself knowingly.

Nick nodded. He looked around to see if he could find where Judy went. He caught sight of her sitting on a bench at the lookout point. He came toward her, sat down next to her, and put his arm around her. She shivered into his side and they huddle together.

"What I don't know," began Judy after a moment of silence, "is what they wanted? I mean, why did they make so many ferals in the same place?"

Hopps snorted as she came up behind them. "It's obvious. They wanted preds to kill each other. They probably did. Most of them anyway."

Wolford and Clawhauser sucked in a breath as though they'd just been punched in the gut while Fangmeyer gave her a sharp look—not that she could see—before turning to see Wilde's reaction. None of them had wanted to mention the subject of death—especially not in front of Wilde. He seemed to barely notice the attention he was being given; and when he did and saw animals near the van waiting for his reaction, he let out a sad bark of mirthless laughter before saying, "I don't know what you're all looking at me for." His voice trembled. "She's probably right."

And with that, he simply turned away and put his head in his paw.

Within the first forty-five minutes of their aimless driving after his outburst, Wilde had gone from vacillating between frantic texting and hopeless sobs to simply shutting down completely. He was numb. He had nothing in him left to give. Everything he'd worked for in his life had been stripped away—but what stung was that those things that he'd held most dear to his heart had been stolen from him in one fell swoop: Wild Times was forlorn. It had been shattered in every way imaginable—from how the roof had been blown off to the blood that now stained its floors, beach, and the surrounding waters.

His mind had remained in a pool of distancing numbness from that time till now as the conversation slowly drew him back to the present—back to reality.

The choice of target had been well-made, he mused; for no other place in the minds of predators had ever been more associated with the hope of freedom than his park.

Topping it all off in the worst possible way was the fact that that was where his son had died.

His son . . . who had only been there at his insistence.

"It's true," insisted Hopps. "There's no doubt in my mind that that's what was going on. If Nick had listened to me when I first realised what was happening and evacuated everyone, the deaths wouldn't've been anywhere near as numerous."

"Sure you wouldn't like to cap that off with an 'I told you so'?" snarled Wilde as he hopped off the back of the van and turned to look at Hopps.

She spun around, cocked an eyebrow as she regarded him, and kissed the air in his direction.

Wilde let out a cry of anger and broke into a run before diving into Hopps, tackling her to the ground. His paws were around her throat before anybody could react as he growled at her angrily.

"You fucking bitch! You planned this from the start! You knew that the plan was to kill us all!"

Suddenly there were arms all around him, pulling him back as his paw worked to crush her.

Voices all around him were shouting at him to desist!

"Let her go!"

"We need her information!"

Wilde growled. "Let me go! She killed my son! She killed my son!" He choked out a sob.

He was finally torn off her and held back by Nick, Judy, Finnick, and Clawhauser.

"No," choked Hopps as she gasped for breath and struggled to stand, " _you_  killed your son. I  _told_  you that ferals were real, but you insisted I was lying." Her voice was harsh like gravel as she tried to speak. "I told you that something bad was going to happen—that everyone needed to leave—but you didn't wanna hear it. You saw how frantic I was to get out of there! But somehow you just didn't get that there was a problem!" She broke off and clutched her throat, leaning on the bench as she struggled for breath.

Wilde's shoulders slumped.

"You had three or four minutes of warning ahead of time that you didn't take advantage of—and  _all_  of it because I'm prey," she continued harshly.

"Because you've been killing us!" retorted Fangmeyer as he came to Wilde's side, growling menacingly. "What makes you think that we should have trusted you  _at all_?"

"You go ahead and rationalise it any way you want, but the evidence should've been right there for anyone who took the time to look," she insisted as her voice came back to her. "The fact that I was there at all should've been a major tip off. But  _none_  of you wanted to believe that a pred could go feral. I didn't know it was happening at first. But I'd seen it with my own two eyes."

"Because you prey would never try to use propaganda to foment fear, would you?" growled Wolford.

"I was right, wasn't I? You may have the moral high ground in your argument, but I have the truth in  _mine_! If you had just accepted the truth of what the news outlets—of what  _I_ —had been saying, none of this would have happened! Not the way that it did, anyway. And any moron can see it! Let me put it to you,  _Wolfy_ ," she said with no small hint of anger as Wolford snarled, "now that we  _know_  that preds are going feral, what's the  _first_  question that comes to your mind?"

They were all silent for a moment.

"Who's behind it," said Judy.

Hopps looked at the doppelgänger who stood behind her and smirked. "Bingo." She turned back toward the preds in front of her. "In other words, if you had accepted the truth of the situation sooner, you could have worked on a solution. You would have realised that someone or something was behind it. But you can't do  _anything_  until you acknowledge there's a problem! You dismissed the news interviews and the press conferences that covered the whole thing from A to B, and you ignored it because you were all so certain that it was all part of some plot to make you look bad in the news. It still may be part of a plot—but just a different one than you thought. Either way, you were caught totally unawares."

Her accusation stung, and while they all looked on angrily they were unable to see past the truth of the matter. As they looked back on their actions, the individual predators realised that they wouldn't have done anything differently—so much of their lives had been spent being lied about and slandered that they would have had no choice but to imagine that the news about preds going feral was just one more attempt to make citizens of the city fearful. There was no way around it: they had essentially been programmed to ignore most negative things said about their species' history as so much of it had been slanted through the perspective of those with an agenda.

Even Wilde grunted to himself angrily as, even while it had been taking place right in front of him, he'd insisted to the sergeant's double that predators no longer went savage.

"You have eyes and ears everywhere," continued the Hopps. "You'd have been able to figure out what was happening in a second if you only just  _considered_  the possibility that what was being said was true."

Wilde started. "How do you kn-"

"Can we please stop," started Judy. "Sorry for interrupting, but we've got a serious problem on our hands: We need to figure out where we're going." She came forward hesitantly. "And I have an idea, but you're going to have to bear with me."

Wolford growled again. "Are we seriously going to listen to her?" he asked as he turned to the others standing around. "I don't care what you say, Ben, there's no way I'm trusting a fucking prey—especially not one whose the same as the bitch who had me fucking declawed!" He spun on his feet and turned back to her. "I say we kill 'em both!"

He looked around at the animals surrounding him.

"Fang!" he pointed, "I know you're with me on this!"

Fangmeyer had remained silent throughout the argument though he was positively seething. "You know I'm with you," he spoke—though it came out more as a snarl. He came to stand next to Wolford. "It's because of you that my cub died in your 'care'," he said as he addressed Judy. "I've been waiting a long time for the moment when I'd get to tear you open for what you did to me and to him. I can barely understand your reasons for declawing me, but not him—and  _definitely_  not killing him." He strode forward.

Nick growled and put his arm around his mate protectively. "Don't you dare lay a hand on her!"

"She's not the right one!" shouted Clawhauser.

The white wolf growled again. "I don't give a shit. I'm takin' one of 'em out. And I know for a fact Nick here'd enjoy takin' out the other. I'm sure we'd  _all_  enjoy a piece," he said half over his shoulder.

"Don't you fuckin' dare!" said Finnick as he now came around to stand by Nick and Judy. "I know for a fact that she's innocent."

Everyone was surprised when Wilde spoke up. "The only one we're taking out is the sarge."

"You can't seriously mean to kill her!" shouted Judy.

"The hell I can't!" he shouted back furiously.

"It's useless, Jude," said Hopps as she turned to Judy. "He needs someone to blame for his failure."

Judy whirled angrily. "You know, your reputation isn't too great around here so I might shut my mouth if I wanted to live!"

"Excuse me!" shouted Hopps, "but if I had my children's lives on the line you can bet that I would  _never_  have taken the chance that he did!" She turned back to Wilde. "You had a fox with a tracking device that led right  _to_  you on the beach. And your first thought was to bring your kid there?! You  _must_  have known that police were coming there at some point, and yet you still held a gathering of preds in the same place!"

Wilde snarled. "We didn't think-"

"That's fucking right! You didn't think!" She was shouting now. "It doesn't matter what you were expecting, you should have guessed that something was off. My sources in Happy Town told me that Mr. Big was attending, but I didn't see or hear him anywhere on the building. There was even a chair set up for him on the stage, I saw, and he wasn't there. Did he leave early? And if he did, was it because something didn't feel right?!"

Wilde stood there. He was totally convicted.

"I knew it! Someone you trusted even told you that they had a bad feeling and you ignored it anyway!"

"Don't you dare compare yourself to him! He's been helping us since the day things went to shit!" shouted Wolford.

"Even Mr. Big knew when things were getting too shady for his liking. He knew to get out because his whole family's been living by their wits from the day they moved here. When your main goal is self-preservation you stick to that model," she said, slapping her paws together for emphasis. "It's great that you all wanted to stick around and help each other out—normally that can work out great. But when you live your life under a fucking microscope, mistakes like the kind you made tonight can be catastrophic. We're  _all_  lucky to be alive!"

They all stood there as she walked forward and stood in the midst of the sort-of circle they all formed.

"So don't you blame me for what happened there tonight! Especially after I warned you that something was going down. I  _knew_  that something was wrong."

Fangmeyer pulled a switchblade from his pocket. "You know you talk too fucking much."

"And  _you_!" she said breathlessly as she turned to Fangmeyer, either stupidly or bravely challenging him, "You blame me for your cub's death? For your getting declawed? How about the fact that you were breaking the law!"

"That's no exc-"

"No!" she interrupted, "Maybe it fucking isn't! But guess what?  _This_  is the city you live in and  _these_  are the rules of that city! This didn't spring up on you unannounced! This is the way things've been in this city for generations! The problem you  _all_  seem to have is that you were expecting things to somehow magically change! Fuck no, they're not going to magically change. What goes for you goes for me too and every other fucking person out there whether they're prey or pred— _no one_  gets a pass.

"What do you think's gonna happen to all your prey informants when it comes out that they were in league with preds? What do you think's going to happen to every single one of them?! I can guarantee you that they're  _all_  dead. All of them. Down to the last child in their family. You will  _never_  hear from them again. When you see the shit-show from the inside it becomes  _abundantly_  clear that this is how things're going to apply to  _everyone_. You also learn real quick how to play by those rules, and—most importantly—what the rules are. You have to be pragmatic in the face of crisis because if you fall the fuck apart there isn't anyone to help you out of it but yourself. So, yeah, you all did fuck up. Because you didn't get just how far we were willing to go to enforce the rules—and that was your mistake, not ours."

"Never underestimate your enemy," said Wilde quietly as he nodded to himself, a slight edge to his voice. He looked up suddenly, staring directly at Hopps, a profound darkness to his eyes. "Trust me when I say I won't make that mistake again," he growled. Before anyone could move, and to everyone's surprise, Wilde suddenly dove and tackled the bunny to the ground. Before she could cry out, he lifted her by the shoulders and quickly whipped her back down. Her head slammed into the ground beneath her, cracking as it made contact, even as she struggled to fight him.

"Bring me some rope!" he shouted as she started to lose consciousness. "We'll keep her in Mike's trunk for the rest of the ride; wherever we go."

"Don't!" she exclaimed softly. "I have to go back! You don't understand!"

She continued her protests as they bound her and brought her over to the van. Wilde opened up his son's trunk and packed her inside before closing it and latching it with a key.

"You ask me, we should be throwing them in with her," said Fangmeyer as he nodded toward both Nick and Judy.

"They're with us," said Wilde as he let out a shaky sigh.

"And why the hell do you keep saying that?!" shouted Wolford as he came around to look at Wilde. "Just this morning we saw you all bringing her in! Isn't it obvious that they're twins or something?"

Wilde looked at the others in the group. "I think we need to bring them in," he said as he looked over to Clawhauser and Finnick who nodded in approval. He looked back toward Nick and Judy who were now practically glued together—The more the two wolves went on the more it started to feel as though it were just the two of them against everyone else.

"P, come over here and stand next to me," said Wilde. He turned toward the two wolves before him. "Maybe the two of you haven't really had the chance to figure this out, but Garou took his time and was able to clear things up for us." He finished speaking as Nick, along with Judy, came up and stood next to him. "You notice anything similar between the two of us?" he asked the wolves, carefully.

"I don't need to be told that you two have the same scent," began Fangmeyer. "I'm not stupid and neither is Wolford. We picked up on it a while after you all got together at Wilde Times, but it's not possible for you to be the same."

"Then use your eyes. I don't have a twin. Now that the bandage is gone and the swelling has gone down around his face I know you can see it. Yeah, maybe Hopps could have a twin, but not me."

"I don't get what you're trying to say," said Fangmeyer.

Wilde turned to Judy. "Can I see your phone?"

She handed it to him carefully.

Wilde swiped it open and tapped to her camera roll, flicking past all the embarrassing pictures of "him" and Judy together and got to some of the more-innocuous photos that showed members of the ZPD. Of the few Judy had shown him, he was certain that he had seen some of Wolford and Fangmeyer as full officers on the force. He was moderately surprised to find a few of them all out for drinks together: Clawhauser, Nick, Judy, Wolford, Chief Bogo, and some other whom he couldn't recognise were all obviously out at a bar after hours.

He went over to the wolves' side so that both Fangmeyer and Wolford could look over his shoulder and see the pictures.

After the first few, Wolford spoke up. "So she's good at photoshop!"

Wilde swiped to the video at Gazelle's concert. He went through several other videos as well such as one where the force seemed to be celebrating the birthday of an elephant named Francine.

Then there were other photos of prey and predator creatures walking together, collarlessly, in the city.

"What is this?" asked Wolford.

"It's Zootopia. The Zootopia where she comes from," said Wilde.

"It doesn't look like  _any_  Zootopia  _I_  know of," said Fangmeyer. "Those photos of us and the video, though . . . that never happened."

"It's real footage," started Wilde, "and she's not from this world. Neither of them are," he finished, referring to Nick and Judy.

"That can't be real!" said Wolford. "It's a trick!"

"But then how do you explain an  _actual_  copy of me? Both of them come from a Zootpia that works!"

"Mostly!" chimed in Judy.

"Where? What other Zootopia?" asked Wolford.

"Yeah, I think we would've heard if there were another one," said Fangmeyer.

"It's in another universe," said Nick.

The two wolves only stared before Fangmeyer let out a belt of laughter.

"Are you out of your fucking minds?!" he exclaimed loudly as he looked from Wilde to Finnick to Clawhauser. "You mean based on some doctored footage and photoshopped pictures you're gonna  _believe_  them?!" the white wolf exclaimed.

"How do you explain there being two Hopps and two of us?" said Wilde. "I know you know that even twins don't share the same scent. He and I do and so does she and Hopps," he said as he gestured to the rabbit.

"There's gotta be some rational explanation for it! The idea that they came from another world is an impossibility so let's not mess around with that anymore. We have to figure out where they're  _really_  from and what they're doing here and why, of all times to show themselves, did they do it today—on the day an attack was planned!" said Wolford.

"I believe they're telling the truth!" said Wilde.

"You're being played!" shouted Wolford. " _All_  of you!" he finished as he looked around. He couldn't believe that they were being taken in by such a stupid idea!

"Then you tell me the fucking reason!" shouted Wilde, his temper flaring. "You tell me how it's possible for two animals to mask their scents so completely as to look and smell so alike that it impossible to tell the difference between them! Answer me that in some rational way and maybe I can go along with what you're saying!"

"They  _are_  masking their scents! And your 'look-alike' might've just had some surgery or whatever to look like you!"

"If that were his intent, then why didn't he get my scars, too?"

"Maybe he got bad intel and didn't know about them? Maybe he had an older picture! There are a million scenarios that could be playing out here but parallel fucking universes?! And if that were true, what brought them here and how? And forget that,  _why_? Just you wait! In twenty-four hours—less than that, even—we'll know the truth."

"What makes you say that?" asked Wilde, curious now.

"In twenty-four hours," started Wolford slowly, "whatever they took to mask their scents'll wear off and we'll be able to figure out who they really are. I only know a few drugs that're able to mask scents and change them, but even the most potent can only last a day—maybe a little more—since your scent is in your sweat. It's out of your system in a snap." He looked now at the two standing beside Wilde though still addressed his friend. "So if in that time they don't change their scents . . . then . . . then I  _may_  be a bit more willing to believe what you're saying. What  _they're_  saying," he corrected. "I trust 'em about as far as I can throw them."

Nick smirked. "Considering we're on the edge of a cliff, that's pretty damn far."

Wolford was about to retort when was cut off by his partner.

"We need to call Honey in on this," said Fangmeyer. "She has more ways than Mr. Big to get to the bottom of things," he finished decisively.

Wilde seemed to bristle and neither Judy nor Nick knew why. Whatever the reason for Wilde's discomfort, it gave them a bad feeling.

"We would've needed to call her in, anyway," he continued calmly, sensing Wilde's discomfort. "Better we do it now than later."

"I think we should wait on that till we know where we're going," said Clawhauser.

"Or even call her after we get to where we're going," said Finnick.

"Uh . . ." said Nick, speaking up for the first time in a while, "would anybody mind if we continued this discussion in the van? Judy and I're both cold."

"Good idea," said Wilde as he rubbed his own arms.

They all slowly climbed into the back of the vehicle and sat in a sort of circle.

"So," said Wolford in Judy's direction once it seemed they'd all settled in, "you seem to have some idea where we should go," he continued hesitantly, "where was that?"

"I . . . uh . . . well . . ." started Judy, not quite sure how to frame what she had to say. "We need a place to find cover. We also need to find a place where we can regroup-"

"There's no one left," said Wilde. His mood was still shrouded in depression, but being forced to deal with arguments and planning and thinking had gotten him out of himself, though now as he sat his mind seemed to be reverting. Though his soul could go no lower it somehow figured that it had to carry on: The biological need to survive now created an odd paradox in the fox's being—his heart wanted nothing more than to cease existing but his instincts were nowhere near through fighting.

Judy shook her head as she sensed the fox's inner turmoil and she shivered slightly. Wordlessly, Nick wrapped his tail around her and she gently took it, using it as a makeshift blanket.

"That's not true," she said in response to Wilde. "I've been hearing your phones going off since you sent the text bomb-" she cut herself off and covered her mouth. "I mean . . . since you sent the universal text," she corrected, the word bomb setting off an unfortunate association in the minds of those gathered. Everyone had winced at the mention of the word, but Judy quickly gathered their attention. "We know we aren't the only ones out there. There are other mammals out there—just as alone and just as scared as we are now. Why wouldn't we want to get together if we could?"

"And risk another attack?" said Fangmeyer.

"'Cause that worked out so well, before!" said Wolford.

"It can if we find the right place. Look, we know they're looking for . . . Wilde. Is it okay if I call you Wilde? Anyway, they're looking for him. Maybe. Unless they think he's dead. But besides that, we need to question Hopps still,  _and_  we need a safe place where we can do these things."

"So do you have a point or a plan or something in mind?" asked the grey wolf.

Judy sighed. Wolford went unheeded for a few moments as she braced herself. She grit her teeth and looked up at him, knowing already where they might go.

"Bunnyburrow."

Nearly everyone on the car merely looked at her for a moment before breaking into a hearty laugh.

"Y-you can't be serious!" laughed Wilde.

"Like we're gonna go to some prey infested place!" howled Fangmeyer.

"There's no way we're going there!" chuckled Finnick.

Nick tightened his arms around Judy and pulled her into his lap. She was still shivering and he wanted to warm her up. He had told a white lie when he said they were both cold. He had felt his mate shivering next to him and wanted to warm her up. His fur was long enough to have given him more protection against the cold and he would've been fine staying out there a bit longer if not for her. He was just glad to see a bit more colour in her ears, now.

As for the laughter, he suppressed an angry growl. He wasn't keen on the idea of anyone taking his mate for granted. She wasn't stupid—not the least bit. If anything, he had learned during the time he'd first met her that she was one of the smartest minds out there with an excellent capacity for quick thinking. He had learned that himself the hard way. He could understand their attitude toward her and their instinct that veered toward underestimating her, but she'd had to face it so often that it got very tiring  _very_  quickly. It seemed like with every new group she met she had to work twice as hard to prove herself.

"Alright," she said, somewhat combatively, "then maybe  _you_  can think of a place other than my parents' house that's better for hiding out? I have two-hundred and seventy-five brothers and sisters, and the house is built to accommodate them  _all_  and  _more_  for when we have family reunions. There are secret tunnels everywhere, and—best of all—who would suspect a group of predators living there, staying there, and holding their meetings in the area?"

"And I suppose your family wouldn't try to betray us?" growled Wolford.

"Not at the risk of betraying me, too. You may be—doubtfully—betrayed by my siblings if you went alone, but no one there would betray  _me_.  _I'm_  your collateral! If you go down I'll go down, too—Hopps just said that those who aided preds were dead anyway: No one there would risk betraying you if it meant I'd get caught up in it.

"But think about it: What place more improbable for you to meet up? And, as I said before, what other choice is there?"

When no one said anything, she pressed her advantage.

"Is there any doubt about the fact that we need to get out of the area?"

No one said anything.

"Then is there anybody with any ties at all to anyplace outside Happy Town or Zootopia? Someplace we could hide out?" she asked as she looked around.

Still nothing.

"Then?" she prompted.

Finnick had his chin in his hand, and when it seemed to no one—including himself—had any counterargument, he said, "Okay, so we do things your way. You sure you can get us out?"

Now it was her turn to look doubtful. "No . . ." she said slowly, "I'm  _not_  sure. To get there we're gonna have to go through Zootopia. Bunnyburrow's two-hundred and eleven miles or so from there. Most preds are nocturnal, so we have to wait a bit till the majority of them are asleep. I'd suggest waiting till ten or so. We're about two hours from Happy Town and it'll be about ten minutes through the city to get the bridge that connects to the mainland. At seventy miles an hour on the highway, we could be there in about three hours and some change before we get to my parents' home. We're looking at something around five hours, eleven minutes, and fifty seconds. If our speed is good."

"It'll take us till three in the morning to get there at that rate!" said Wolford who didn't relish the thought of driving this late. Now that they'd all been stationary for a bit, the adrenaline had left their systems leaving them incredibly drained.

"Well," said Judy, " _my_  way we all eventually get to sleep in a bed. Eventually. And, obviously, get to spend some of the day sleeping in before we figure out what we're gonna do. I say, we take some time to rest now. We all need it. It's about . . ." she looked at her phone, "six O five, now. We rest up for four or so hours," she said as she looked back up at them, "and head back at ten. We'll reach Zootopia by twelvish—I think for the most part I saw that there was virtually zero nightlife there. We should be covered."

"And how about police looking for preds?" asked Clawhauser.

"I'll drive!" she said brightly.

"But didn't they try to kill you? I mean, or, kill whoever that was?" said the cheetah as he motioned toward the trunk.

"Besides, the van's not built for you," said Fangmeyer.

"And, you're still in uniform," said Nick. "They'll probably still recognise you."

"We're all taking a risk either way," she said as she tilted her head straight back and looked up at him. "Either way, there's no way to Bunnyburrow along the coast since there's no bridge connecting it to the mainland—unless that's changed here, too." She looked around at those in the van who shook their heads slowly. She nodded. "It's likely we won't see any cops anyway."

"What makes you so sure?" he asked.

"Think about who took the night shifts," she said.

Nick suddenly nodded in understanding. "Preds did."

"Exactly. And for the same reason you wear shades in the daytime."

"Because we're nocturnal," said Wilde as it dawned on him, "and direct sun can hurt our eyes."

Judy eyed him. "Right on. So sometimes I take the night shift with him," she motioned to Nick. "And if I know anything about this Zootopia it's that they openly hate the preds that work there. It wasn't too long ago that there was a problem in Zootopia, and the preds were the first to get fired or shuffled around the ZPD. It led to chaos when it came time for us non-nocturnals to take the night shifts because it tends to be bad. I mean our vision."

At Wilde's quizzical look, Judy amended—"I mean  _our_  Zootopia," she said as she nodded to Nick.

"What happened in your Zootopia?" asked Wilde, somewhat interested now.

"Carrots broke the city," said Nick flatly.

"It was an accident!" she huffed.

"Yeah, a really bad one, too, though, you have to admit!" he replied somewhat playfully.

"Yeah," she sighed. "You know I'm sorry, though, right?"

"What did you do?" Wilde asked, an uncertain edge in his voice.

"Well . . . I may have accidentally started a species war when I suggested that the reason why predators were going savage had to do with the fact that they were all genetically predisposed to that kind of behaviour."

Wilde cocked an eyebrow. "And you still mated her?" he asked Nick.

"To be fair, she  _did_  realise her mistake," said Nick. "Besides," said Nick as he smirked down at the bunny in his lap, "how can you weesist such an adowabow widdow face?" he finished in baby talk.

Judy rolled her eyes, here ears flushing red and let out a sharp breath through her nose. She was  _clearly_  biting her tongue and she shook her head gently. Everyone in the van could see that the fox had just  _royally_  stomped on the bunny's nerves but by God, if it wasn't the cutest fucking thing they'd ever seen.  _Everyone_  was thinking it but no one  _dared_  laugh. They could see her foot twitching as though to thump it and if she did it'd all be over.

To sober himself and the rest of the group, Wilde pressed on. "Then why's she carrying around fox repellent?" he asked somewhat tensely, though keeping himself in check.

"It might," she started, "have something to do with the fact that if I'd refused to use it when chief Bogo gave it to me, something would've seemed off. Like, it would've been out of character for me to refuse it. That's the sense I was getting, anyway."

"So you just went along with it because you were scared of getting caught?" said Wilde. "You still have a moral obligation to refuse it if you really think it's wrong!"

"Depends on what your end goal is," she returned. "Are you telling me that you would've been better off if I'd been caught, put in a cell, and left unable to give you guys any kind of warning at all? I may not agree with everything that Hopps said, but I do agree with at least one thing: Survival is the main goal. I know you feel it, too," she said, pointedly looking at Wilde. "I'm bred to have that instinct, as are most of us here! So yeah, I use trickery and subterfuge in order to get my way in a pinch:

"I blackmailed Nick into helping me find Emmitt Otterton, threw the blackmail material into a suspicious lot so that I could claim probable cause and go onto Mr. Big's property to continue the investigation. And then, when I figured out that night howlers were bulbous roots I had Mr. Big threaten to kill Weasleton if he wouldn't give us the information we needed."

Nick only looked down at her. "You know, when you put it that way, you make me think that you're more of a hustler than I am."

She tilted her head back so that they were nose to nose and grinned widely. "And don't you forget it, Sweetheart."

"Ugh, gross!" scoffed Fangmeyer, "Could you wait till we get a room?"

She turned her head back to face Wilde and laughed a little at the wolf's reaction, turning her eyes to him. She realised that the majority of her story had gone over the heads of the animals there but had noticed some reaction to the name Otterton though she couldn't tell whether it were fear or sadness. Or both.

"The point is," she continued, "that you have to live your life by a different set of rules when you're undervalued and given a short straw in life. I don't have strength or height or sharp teeth or fangs to help me out there in the real world, so I have to rely on what I have and that's my speed and my ability to think quick. I took the repellent because I was on the spot and refusing it would've sent up immediate alarm bells."

"Then why were you more open with us?" asked Wilde. "If what you're saying's true, you were being more truthful with the rest of us than you were with the police department. What made you think you could drop your guard with us?"

Judy rolled her shoulders. "I woke up driving this morning around five o'clock or so. From then till I got to your . . . establishment . . . I figured out whose side I wanted to be on."

"Then that actually leads me to the question that I asked when I first met you: Why did you come to pick me up?"

Judy nodded. "I answered that question truthfully when I first met you. I think I'd already decided by that point that I wasn't going to turn you in. I mean, the Nick I knew was really a good fox beneath his hardboiled mask so I figured that you'd also be helpful. I mean, I had to hope. So, I was trying to probe what kind of animals you were while trying to keep a lid on things. My one mistake was telling you that the chief wanted me to bring you in. I honestly didn't know why. But since I got the email I knew I was going to have to come out and see you. Otherwise, it'd look odd. I was ready to just go back and say that I couldn't find you."

"But then why did you do it—I mean, why come and meet me—when you could've just let Hopps come for me? I mean, why d'you feel that  _you_  had to come?"

"Because I didn't know there were two of us at the time. If I'd known that, then I might've been able to let her go by herself. It's lucky for you that I didn't, though, because if I hadn't you wouldn't've had any warning at all."

"Not that it did us any good, anyway," murmured Finnick.

"It might've helped if you'd told us about the night howlers beforehand," growled Wilde angrily and with no small amount of bitterness, though it wasn't specifically directed at her and more toward the situation.

"If she'd known," said Nick, "she would've told you. Hell,  _I_  could've told you. We both had a front row seat to what happened."

"If we'd been able to talk with Sgt. Hopps sooner, we might've been able to figure out what was happening sooner," nodded Judy.

Nick laughed behind her. "How dare you suggest it?" he joked.

Judy chuckled slightly before her face turned serious. "She was right, though. About everything.  _She_  had the information that you wanted, not me," she continued as she looked at Wilde.

She thought back to when she'd initially been questioned by Wilde and Koslov. If she'd known what Hopps had known, she would have been able to share that information in an instant. It seemed to her, though, that Hopps had at least tried if only to save her own skin.

"Anyway, yeah," she continued "it's true about ferals. What's left out—and she didn't really get to this part—is that it was all a conspiracy by Assistant Mayor Bellwether."

Everyone looked at her oddly.

"Bellwether?" said Finnick.

"Who's that?" asked Wolford.

Clawhauser turned to answer. "She's an assistant to Mayor Pricilla."

Nick and Judy looked at each other.

"Who's that," asked Nick.

"She's been practically running this city in some form for the past ten years," Fangmeyer said.

"Ten _years_?!" Nick exclaimed. "I didn't know a term could last that long!"

"It can't," said Judy as she shook her head, looking straight ahead.

"She wasn't _mayor_ for ten years. She was the Chief of Police before then," said Fangmeyer.

"What about Mayor Lionheart?" asked Nick.

"Who?" asked Finnick.

"I think he means Leodore," said Fangmeyer.

Finnick nodded. "I know him. He's one of the richies who can afford to live in Animalia."

Wilde nodded. "Yeah. I guess he was about as close to a representative for us in the city as you could get. He was really one of the few original families who could afford to do anything when it came to government. Both Koslov and Mr. Big's families were deep into crime by the time things started turning the way they did—it was too late for them to get out of crime and run a legitimate business by that time so they just had to go further underground."

"Lionheart was mayor where we came from," said Nick. "Bellwether plotted to divide the city. She wanted to take power for herself and get rid of all the preds in the city, making it so that only prey would be in power. She started having predators shot with a serum of night howler extract. Her minions boiled down the roots to extract the chemical. It doesn't actually transform anyone into a feral, it just has a psychotropic effect on individual's minds. What we saw back there wasn't a 'reversion' or anything of the sort."

"Will it wear off?" asked Wilde.

"I don't—well,  _we_  don't know," said Judy. "The last time Nick and I dealt with it, there was some antidote that had to be administered. Left to its own devices, the stuff lasts for weeks in a mammal's system. I mean, regardless of what species they were or anything."

"Do you know what the antidote is?" asked Finnick.

"Not really," said Nick. "She and I were mostly involved with the investigation side of it. But it probably had something to do with administering some anti-hallucinogen. I have no idea what it was but they probably reverse-engineered it from the plant."

"We might be able to figure it out, though . . ." said Judy pensively. "I mean, if we  _do_  go to Bunnyburrow we'll be able to get our hands on a few bulbs of it."

She turned back to them.

"So . . ." she started tentatively, "back to my original question: Does Bunnyburrow seem like it would work? Maybe we take a nap now and work our way through the night there? Then we can rest up, have a place to sleep, eat, and make contact with whoever we need to."

"One possible flaw in your plan, though," started Fangmeyer. "If you're  _really_  not from this world, how do you know your parents are going to be any friendlier to you than Hopps or the police were?"

Judy shrugged and sighed exhaustedly. "I guess I don't, really, but I think we  _have_  to take a chance 'cause where else can we turn?"

-.-.-.-

Some hours later, after they had slept there in the van on the side of the road, the group was startled awake by a thumping that came from Mike's trunk. Judy yawned and got out her phone and used it as a flashlight to see around the van enough to turn on an overhead light. The others were stirring groggily in the suddenly brightened space, their sleep having given way to sober thoughts.

"Sorry, sorry!" she yawned as she sat back down.

Nick walked over to the trunk and opened it to find a bound Hopps kicking the inside of the trunk.

"Thanks for waking us, Sunshine. What seems to be the problem?" the fox asked.

"I . . . I need to go to the bathroom," she said as her ears blushed somewhat.

Nick yawned and turned to Wilde who was also yawning. "I think we ought to take her in a group in case she tries to get away from us." He turned back to her. "Not that she really has anywhere to go. Not in the middle of the woods, two hours from civilisation," Nick finished.

They all helped her into the woods but let Judy follow her alone since she was the only female.

"Why're you helping them!" asked Hopps when the two were alone.

"Why wouldn't I? They need help."

"You realise that you're risking your life and your . . . what, did you say he was your mate? That's the dumbest thing I've ever heard! And you were stupid to admit it to anyone."

"Maybe," murmured Judy as she continued into the woods. Her groggy mind didn't feel like arguing at the moment. "But they seem trustworthy."

"Not everybody's going to be so welcoming when it comes to your relationship. Animals are likely to turn you in for just that."

"I'll cross that bridge when I come to it."

Hopps stopped behind Judy and let out a sharp laugh. "I thought at least you'd be smarter than this. You can't trust any _body_."

"Maybe not," started Judy as she turned around, started toward Hopps, and led her behind a tree, "but I had to start somewhere. If there's anyone I don't trust with my information, it's you."

"And you're the one  _I_  don't trust. You were the one who was in the police department earlier passing yourself off as me, weren't you? I wanna know who you're working for and who you got to do such a damn good job on your surgery."

Judy looked bemused. "Huh?"

"You look exactly like me—I know I don't have a sister who looks exactly like me, so I wanna know who the hell you are. I mean, really."

"You wouldn't believe me if I told you," she returned. She couldn't help but wonder at her gutsy lookalike—here she was tied up in the middle of a cold forest at the end of autumn, going to the bathroom next to a tree and she had the self-confidence to attempt an interrogation? If Judy weren't so suspicious of her double, she'd be impressed at her courage.

"I may have misjudged you," Hopps conceded. "Maybe you're not the one who needs to look out—I'd wager  _they're_  the ones who need to look out for  _you_. What was your aim in going to Wilde Times? And what's with that fox? I can see he's a beat up version of Nick, back there. If I didn't know any better I'd think he wanted to get caught on purpose. Am I right?"

Judy gave her a quizzical look. "Why would he want to get caught?" She was honestly curious, now.

"Maybe you were part of the mayor's plan to kill the preds in Happy Town."

"You say that like it's an accusation. I thought that's what  _you_  wanted."

Hopps bristled and became suddenly taciturn.

Nothing more was said between the two of them despite Judy's attempts to get her double to talk more. Something wasn't adding up right. She thought back to the fact that'd been brought up in conversation in the van and snippets she picked up earlier: That somehow her double had been the target of an attempted assassination. She recalled that Hopps had touched on that subject when they'd all argued earlier that evening, but it seemed now that all attempts to get her to speak were failing and she didn't know why.

She had managed to get Wilde's cell number as well as the numbers of everyone else in the group who had a phone—which included everyone but Nick—and she took the opportunity while they were waiting to say nothing of their destination to Hopps for fear that it would start a fight—the bunny might take it as a threat or an attack on her family. Judy knew herself well enough to know that if she were in a position where she thought individuals were plotting to hurt her family in any way she'd be frantic to think of a way to escape—and she probably would. Or die trying. Hopps seemed more or less resigned now to the fact that she was trapped, her earlier protests insisting that she needed to stay having died down. It seemed that it'd dawned on Hopps as it had on Judy earlier that any attempt to remain would be costly.

Hopps knew she was up against steep odds, to begin with. Coal had tried to kill her, she reminded herself. Just that one fact told her so much about what was happening and where she stood with the rest of the police department and the city itself. She had no idea where to turn. Well, that wasn't entirely true, she reminded herself. The trouble was that she had no idea how to get to the area of Happy Town she'd need to—there was no way she'd be able to take on a group of friends and an eerie facsimile of herself.

Before she knew it, Judy was leading her back to the van. She considered escape but realised that it was futile to consider it. She was still cuffed, two wolves and two foxes were nearby and she was in the middle of nowhere on a freezing, near-winter night with only a thin layer of daywear.

Wilde was the one who lifted her back into the trunk.

"You have no idea how much I resent this," she murmured.

"You have no idea how much we all enjoy this," he retorted.

"So what's your plan? Where're we headed."

"You'll see once we get there," said Fangmeyer.

Nick closed the trunk and latched it again. They all got into the van, this time with Fangmeyer in the driver's seat in order to give Wolford a rest.

"It's not exactly ten yet, but I think it's close enough," said Judy with a slight shrug.

"Did you have an objection?" asked Wolford in a resentfully calm tone, though Judy was not oblivious to the hard edge in his eyes.

"Not really. I'm probably just over-thinking things. Either way, we'll be in Zootopia at a late enough time that we'll be able to get through the city with relatively no problem. Actually, that brings me to another point," she said as Fangmeyer started the van and began to turn around on the highway, "do you have any idea whether there are any preds who are working against you?"

They all looked at each other with confused expressions.

"What makes you ask?" said Clawhauser.

"Well," started Judy as she snuggled into Nick's lap as he wrapped an arm around her, "it just seems like, from something that Sgt. Hopps said, that there were some predators who weren't exactly on our side. It was something about the way that she warned me not to trust anybody."

"You think there may be double agents?" asked Nick.

She nodded to herself silently. "We have to consider that it's a possibility. I don't think it would have been possible to pull off the stunt tonight unless there had been someone on the inside feeding city hall information. More than just Nick's collar, I mean. All the collar tells you is that there's one animal in one particular location—but there would've had to've been someone on the inside who would've had mentioned the number of bodies present."

"Are you sure?" asked Fangmeyer from the front. "If you just keep a tally by watching the front entrance it would give you a good enough idea how many were inside."

Judy nodded. The only real reason for her suspicion was Hopps' comment and even then, the doppelgänger had never actually said it. Still, there was enough in the comment and a few other things she'd said that made her wonder. There'd be no way to know for sure without asking a member of the police force directly. Maybe there were no predator traitors at all—she remembered a case not too long ago involving a sheep dressing up in a wolf costume and committing crimes in order to sway public opinion on predators.

When she brought this up to the group, some nodded while others were in total denial that such a thing could happen—it was unimaginable that any pred would betray his own kind. She pointed out to them that it might not necessarily be a betrayal—police officers where she was from were often successfully able to pass themselves off as another species in order to gather intelligence and otherwise go undercover. Judy was certain that Hopps would've been aware of such tactics and related as much to the group—including her notion that it was possibly this fact to which Hopps had been alluding.

No one really said anything either confirming or denying what she was saying—How could they without direct evidence?—but seemed to come to a general consensus that they all needed to be extra careful. While the possibility had occurred to many, the fact of the matter was that since none of them had spent any real time within or around members in the upper echelons of the ZPD, they had no real way of knowing either way. Garou's name was brought up along with the suggestion that he might have known since he actually worked there semi-voluntarily. He might've heard  _something_  about any such plans—but all efforts to contact him or Cevilla had failed.

Mr. Big had responded to the texts and mentioned that he and his family were safe but that several of the animals who worked for him weren't answering and were presumed transformed, dead, or out of range. Koslov was MIA, too; along with several others. Of all those whom they texted, hardly any were still in the city. Only a few vague warnings were given regarding the urban area, suggesting that they needed to take extra care when coming through; though there was little information given as to what the threat was, exactly. All attempts to gather more information went unanswered though they felt they could take a guess as to what the threat was.

The two or so hours spent in the van were whiled away with idle chat interspersed with natural silences and private conversations.

As they reached Happy Town, they slowed so as to travel within the speed limit of the city. They passed a sign reading "Welcome to Happy Town." Claw marks had been drawn across it in downward and diagonal swipes as though a large creature had been attempting to use it as a scratching post.

Nick, along with everyone else in the van, pinned his ears back tensely as they entered the city.

"Because that's not at all ominous," said Nick as they drove on. Judy nudged him in the ribs and he winced slightly. "Ow! Careful, Carrots. I'm not all the way fixed yet!"

"Sorry!" she replied in a hushed whisper. She reached over and gently rubbed his side. "I'm just scared right now."

"I know. This is like the start to every horror movie. I already know that you're gonna be the final female survivor. The bitch in the trunk will probably die last."

"Stop . . ." she moaned out.

"Just wait: Something's gonna fall into the middle of the road and look dead—or maybe it'll be a tree branch or something. One of us in the back will go out to investigate and-or get it out of the road. Then either the thing'll come alive and kill whoever's looking or the attack'll come from the sides.

"For extra tension, the diver's the one who'll get out of the car and we'll all start scrambling to get in the front seat to drive away while he's being torn to shreds. After we're all picked off one by one it'll just be you, me, and Wilde left. I'll die horribly right in front of you and Wilde will save you and get you safely to Bunnyburrow and you'll end up forming a kind of romance with him while wistfully reminiscing about the life you could have had with me."

Wolford raised an eyebrow at Nick while also keeping an eye on the road ahead. He had no idea how Fangmeyer was able to keep a straight face while driving. The pitch blackness of the road ahead of them wasn't conducive to the mood at all, and it seemed to him that all the streetlights had been turned off. He growled to himself slightly as the fox's words, though a joke, were hitting a little too close to home, emotion-wise.

Wolford shook his head. "You are  _so_  fucked up it's unbelievable," he said as they continued onward.

"Blame my upbringing," Nick said flatly, though he was unable to suppress a smirk that came to his face.

Finnick was about to say something when something jumped in the road ahead of them. Fangmeyer hit the brakes instantly and paused in front of the creature.

Nick opened his mouth to speak but was stopped when Judy gripped his arm tightly and gave him a harsh look.

"Don't. You. Dare," she enunciated in a stern staccato that brooked no argument.

Fangmeyer slowly edged the van forward and growled. "I know you were joking back there, Nick; but seriously: Fuck you."

It earned a timid laugh as they continued forward past what they could now see was a naked tiger. It growled at them as they passed by and continued forward so as not to hit it. They managed to pass it as it growled at them.

"Maybe it thinks we're one big animal?" asked Judy.

"Well, he's not stupid," said Wolford as he watched them pass the tiger by, slowly.

"It has nothing to do with being stupid and everything to do with the fact that these animals are hallucinating and are out of their minds. There's no way to know what it is they're seeing," she replied.

They travelled on through the city encountering other ferals, many of whom attacked the vehicle while still others showed a kind of fear that the earlier tiger had.

Fangmeyer took a different root down by the water front as often as he could to avoid the busier highway in case there were police on the roads. Judy stuck close to Nick as rapid-fire guns could be heard going off in the distance.

"What kind of darts are they using?" asked Nick. "Those shots sound like they're just one after another."

"They aren't dart-guns," replied Fangmeyer from the front. "They're using bullets."

"Bullets?"

"Yeah. Don't tell me you've never heard of bullets!"

"Well, yeah, but only for hunting! And wars! What the hell are the mammals here doing with guns with  _bullets_  in them?!" he exclaimed.

"Prey are allowed to use them on predators," said Wilde from beside Nick.

Judy looked up at Wilde. "You're joking!"

Wilde shook his head sadly. "When you were confronted by police today," he said to Nick, "they had two guns on their belts, right? One on the left and another on their right?"

Nick nodded slowly, thinking about the pig he'd encountered when first coming here. "Yeah, she held me up with one of 'em," said Nick. "She was a pig and I'd just been assaulted and she was arresting  _me_  and holding  _me_  up."

"She would've had two guns on her," continued Wilde in an odd reverie, "one on the left and the other on her right. I'll bet she held you up with the gun on her left."

A shudder went through Nick as he had a terrible feeling of what he was about to hear.

"She was holding you up with a bullet gun. She could've killed you with it. They're using rapid fire guns in the city, now, either to take out preds or to take out the ferals. Either way, they don't give a shit. We'll be lucky if they don't pick us up."

"As long as we stick to the low roads we won't be," said Fangmeyer from the front.

Judy brought her paw to her mouth. "That's terrible1 I can't believe they'd do that!"

Wilde snorted. "I'm sure it wasn't that much better where you're from. How many did you save?"

"All of them," said Nick. "None of them died. We saved them all."

Wilde chuffed. "Oh, of course . . ." he said in a quiet growl.

"Part of it's due to the fact that we don't use bullet guns in our world."

"Yeah?" said Wilde quietly as he tilted his head back. "Well, in this world we have the Razorbacks."

"What're those?" asked Nick.

"A group of elite special forces trained very well in the art of killing. They're known for their ability to sniff out any predator and take him out. The only trouble is, they don't care who gets caught in the crossfire."

"You've crossed paths with them before?" asked Judy.

Wilde nodded solemnly. "Yeah. I . . . Well, you know Vixy, right?"

Nick nodded, his ears tilted back slightly.

"Well, she and I were gonna get married. But she got killed."

Nick's ears perked up in shock. "Vixy's dead in this universe?"

"Yeah. The ZPD was trying to take down a drug cartel in Happy Town—a seedy part of town, and she was walking home. The ZPD set up a perimeter—after she went into the area. She had no idea she was walking into a battle zone. Someone who escaped told me that he was there when the Razorbacks were sweeping the area and everyone got out. They found her and at first all they did was arrest her. She tried to escape, though, and she didn't get too far before they caught her again . . . and put her to death."

Nick and Judy sat there like stones.

"Is Vixy Mike's . . ." Nick trailed off.

Wilde nodded. "Yeah. She was Mike's mother. The . . ." he broke off as he was suddenly reminded of his son. "The kid you met earlier." Tears started pouring down his face though he refused to sob—his face impassive as his red fur became matted. He laughed scornfully. "I was seventeen and had my first fuck with her. I found out later she was gonna have my first kit, too. I thought I'd fucked up her life and mine, but she said she loved me and wanted to make it work. I dunno if I loved her but I wanted to be there for my kit.

"I was living in the streets by then—Mom and Dad were both gone—and I had Mike on the way and I didn't know what to do. So I had to man the fuck up. I wasn't gonna let my kit be born and have a harder life than I did, so I had to make something of myself. I went back to school and got into college, got on benefits an' all that so we could take care of him and ourselves.

"The kit came along when I was eighteen. I had four years of premed ahead of me; but eventually, I was ready to start the next phase. That's when Vixy . . . ." He broke off and shuddered, unable to prevent his sobs from coming now.

"Take your time," said Judy softly as he choked back his sadness.

After a moment, he continued. "They said that she'd been shot by one of the gang members they'd been after. I found out later that the police shot her. They didn't even seem to care. We were living apart at the time and . . . and we were gonna have a life together."

Judy's ears were pinned back. She said nothing as she waited for him to continue.

"I remember getting to the hospital when I found out that she'd been shot. I left Mike with Vixy's sister and went to go see her. The surgeon told me that she'd lost a lot of blood, so I knew there was a chance that . . ." he paused and swallowed, "but I was just hoping . . . ." He broke off again and took a shuddering breath as he recalled the night, speeding through it as though to rip off a band-aid. "But she'd lost too much blood. Her pressure was dropping—her heart rate was speeding up to try and pump non-existant blood through her body, screaming for oxygen. But there wasn't enough to go round and her heart . . ." he broke off as he stifled a sob. He took a breath. "Her heart . . . ." He  _couldn't_.

Judy kept her composure as best she could and nodded carefully.

"But I didn't want to fail  _him_."

He was talking about his son, she realised.

"I didn't want  _him_  to have a hard life—well, harder than I'd had it. I just kept on thinking that if he hadn't had me for a dad that none of this would've happened to him. So I promised myself that I wouldn't let him see any of it. I would do anything and everything I could to keep him from seeing the shitty side of life. Zootopia would show him how awful life could be as soon as he turned five and had to put that fucking collar on. But for the rest of it . . . I told myself that I was never going to let it hit him as hard as it hit me."

Judy nodded and was holding back her own emotions. "And that's when you thought up the park."

Wilde half laughed, half sobbed. "Yeah . . . yeah, Wilde Times, yeah . . . ." He wiped a hand over his face. "So then that's just kind of a cosmic coincidence isn't it?" he asked with a pained smile on his face. He chuckled painfully and mirthlessly. "That they were both destroyed on the same night?"

Judy seized his paw tightly as Nick pulled him into a tight embrace. Finnick and Wolford scooched over and put their arms around him, too.

"Listen to me," said Judy, "we're here for you. We're here for you."

"We got you, Red. You know we're always gonna back you up," said Wolford tightly.

"You have us," said Finnick firmly.

"I know it doesn't make it better, but you're not alone," said Nick. Reflecting on his own life, he had suffered alone—and suffered alone  _a lot_. There was nothing he'd feared more in his life than being totally isolated; and the tragedies that he'd suffered in his life, the vast majority of them—starting with his trauma at the hands of the Junior Ranger's club—, had been endured alone. It was what he had come to fear most in his life. He had longed for a pack not only for the camaraderie and an end to his societally imposed, solitary existence but also so that he could have someone to rely on when things went to shit.

Here now, in this space, he wanted to give himself—his twin, anyway—the one thing which seemed to have been missing from his life: a pack.

He took the fox by the shoulders and turned him to look at him. "I know it doesn't fix anything," he started as his reflection stared back at him blearily, "but you need to hear this: We're your pack now. You're with us. And we're not going anywhere." He sighed and paused for a moment before continuing. "Here's a lesson I had to learn the hard way—Even a shitty life has value."

Wilde's face quickly changed from one expressing a kind of apathy to one displaying surprise, then confusion, then realisation. He chuckled and nodded agreeably even as ripples of sorrow passed through him.

"Thank you," was all he said in a quiet tone.

Nick let the fox go even as the group stayed around him. Wilde sat there facing Nick for a moment before allowed himself to turn away and lean back against the side of the van. The others stayed near him, keeping close by, as the van went on into the night, making it out of Happy Town, leaving the sounds of gunfire and chaos behind them. They made it through Zootopia without incident and then across the bridge as they finally began their two-hundred and eleven-mile journey to Bunnyburrow.

-.-.-.-

Hours of driving later, they were all relieved when they pulled up to the front of a house in the wee hours of the morning. It was three or so, and after having traded drivers twice in the course of their journey they had managed to make it to their destination without further incident. There had been a few close calls along the way—including a few where they were almost caught by patrolmen who were guarding the roads to and from the city. Arriving at the house, then, meant not only a kind of safety for them—or so they hoped—but also a place to finally take some real rest.

It seemed to those in the van that the majority of the house must be underground—there was no way that two-hundred and seventy-five individuals plus relatives were going to be able to live inside the house if all there were to the home was building that sat before them. When they expressed this to her, she nodded that their hunch was correct and then went on to fight off the litany of jokes that proceeded to tease her. God, she live-down the fact that she was basically a walking stereotype, she thought to herself.

As her attention turned from her companions to the house, Judy became curious about the fact that the lights seemed to be on—at least at the top level. She hummed to herself as they unloaded the trunk carefully. Wolford and Fangmeyer took it between the two of them to as to keep it even. Judy groaned with relief as she walked up the steps to the front door and imagined that she'd finally being able to get out of uniform and slip into something more comfortable.

She walked up to the door and knocked, hearing a slight commotion from within. Judy wasn't certain, but she was somewhat sure she could hear the sound of someone sobbing from within. She heard someone stand up from the kitchen table, round the corner into the front hall, and come to the door.

The lock clicked.

The knob turned.

And the door opened a crack.

Looking out at them, to Judy's surprise, was her tearful mother. The older rabbit's face suddenly seemed to break into an expression of stunned surprise, her eyes widening and her sadness seeming to vanish almost instantly.

Before Judy had a chance to say anything she was suddenly knocked forward suddenly as the door burst open, sending her crashing into her mother. The younger bunny instinctively pushed her mother up against the side of the hall as the two wolves carrying the trunk shoved their way into the house and went down the hall.

Her mother looked on stunned, fearful, and with no small amount of bemusement.

Before her mother could say  _anything_ , the wolves stopped. The grey one turned toward them and called, "Hey, Hopps, which way did you want us to take this?"

Judy sputtered in anger at the sudden and rude invasion but stemmed the flow of anger out of a need to calm what was likely to be an explosive situation, calling back, "Just set it there! And get back here, now!" She was about to continue but stopped when she noticed her mother's terrified expression.

The older bunny was edging toward the door when she suddenly let out a scream and backed away, nearly stumbling over her feet as she scampered from the doorway, as two red foxes and one small fennec made their way in followed by a rotund cheetah.

"Bonnie, are you okay?" came a deep, gravelly voice from a room off the hall to the left. A chair was heard scraping on the floor, then the sound of footsteps. A moment later a stocky male rabbit, moderately advanced in age, rounded the corner and came to a dead stop the moment his eyes landed on the crowd before him.

"Cheese and crackers! Bonnie, get the fox repellent!"

All hell broke loose as the foxes and wolves started forward suddenly as all at once they voiced a cacophony of protests as the older female scurried about to find the weapon.

The older male screamed as they all started talking at him at once, everyone trying to explain the situation. Though every predator was shouting boisterously they attempted to seem as harmless as possible. All the older rabbit saw, however, was a blended chimaera of sharp claws and teeth, tall stances and angry and snarling countenances that whirled together in a terrifying vision.

His limbs went numb and his mind went blank as the certainty that he was about to die at that very moment flooded his instincts, pumping him full of adrenaline as his mind strained itself to think of a way out of the situation.

Before anything else happened, Judy pinned her ears back, put her fingers in her mouth, and let out a sharp whistle that blasted through the house and instantly silenced everyone present.

"Jeez, what the fuck did you go an' do that for?!" shouted Wolford.

"Hey, listen to me!" started Judy angrily. "You're in my  _parents'_  house. You burst in unannounced and're frightening them to death!"

"Judy, are you alright?!" her mother shouted tearfully as she shakily aimed the fox taser.

"Mom, I'm  _fine_! Everybody," she said calmly, her firm tone intending to project that she was in charge of the situation, "let's calm down. Mom, Dad—these are my friends," she said as she gestured to the predators behind her.

"Those  _savages_?!" started her father as he looked over her head incredulously as he beheld the odd assembly behind her.

Judy sucked in breath. "Okay, Dad: They're not savages. They are predators." She spoke slowly though she was trying to keep her temper down. "And they  _are_  my friends. And . . . what the hell—you're gonna figure it out anyway: This fox," she gestured to Nick, "is my mate."

Her parents looked as though she'd just told them that she'd been on a killing spree. She took advantage of their silence and pressed on.

"I've been betrayed by the ZPD," she started as she tried to present as much true information as she could—what she understood about the sergeant's situation, anyway. " _Prey_  animals in the city hall are trying to kill me and were trying to kill all the preds you see here-"

"They must have done something  _illegal_!" her mother cried. "Did you even  _think_  of that?!"

"Mom," she started off calmly, "the ZPD has been killing and torturing predators by the scores in order to make the city into a prey-only city. Look!" She surprised Fangmeyer as she grabbed his paw, pulled him forward, splaying his fingers. He winced in pain, shame, and surprise as she showed her father, who backed away fearfully but then looked closely in curiosity as she went on:

"This was done to him  _without_  anaesthesia! For a  _non_ violent offence!" she said as she indicated the clawless fingers. No one had told her specifically that it had been done without the benefit of pain suppressants but it had seemed relatively clear to her that that'd been the case. She went on. "I was attacked by a member of my own force because they figured out that I wasn't entirely with them—I think."

She stopped for a moment and eyed her parents before pressing on. "Anyway, city hall has been using night howlers to make preds go savage. It's all manufactured by them! They aren't going savage by themselves, they're all victims! Tonight, they were all at a theme park. They were bombed with a night howler gas and turned into ferals. These preds," she indicated the group behind her "along with a few others who went their own way, are the only ones who were able to escape."

A pregnant silence followed where no one said anything.

"I don't believe it," her father said.

"It's true!" she pressed.

"What even are night howlers?" her mother asked. "Some kind of drug?!"

"If they were taking drugs then they deserved it!" her father said angrily as he regarded the preds standing around her. "And I can't even  _begin_  to tell you how disappointed I am in you for getting yourself mixed up in this!"

"It's not a drug!" Judy shouted as her temper flared. "And they  _are_  innocent!" she insisted. She thought for a moment before backtracking. "Well, I guess it is a drug, but it's nothing they're taking themselves! They're being incriminated!"

"What kind of a drug is it?!" her father shouted. "What have you gotten yourself into?!" He seized her and shook her fiercely. Judy was stunned. At no time in her life had her father ever laid a hand on her. She broke free and stood back to look at him.

"Dad!" she said defensively, "you  _know_  what night howlers are!" she cried.

"No, I don't!"

"Night howlers! Night howlers! Uh . . ." she wracked her brain before suddenly realising why she wasn't getting through. "It's midnicampum holicithias!" she said. "Mom, do you remember when Uncle Terry ate a whole one?!" she said as she turned her pleading gaze to her mother.

Her mother looked stunned. "Who told you about that?" she asked. "I never told you that."

"You remember how he took a chunk out of your arm? Mom," she turned toward her father, "Dad, you  _know_  that it can turn even the most gentle animal into a savage! They took whatever it is in the bulbs and concentrated it!"

Her parents looked on, stunned.

She nodded—it seemed she was winning the argument. "They were changed—transformed!—right in front of us! We all saw it!" she gestured around emphatically. "I found out what city hall was up to and they came after me in order to keep me from talking!" It was a lie, she thought. On the other hand, she stopped suddenly, that would make sense. What if Hopps, in spite of her rough exterior, were somehow still attempting to be a good cop and, in so doing, abiding by the letter of the law—however unjust? What if abiding by that letter meant that she were going to have to expose city hall?

It was a long shot, but it was the most educated guess she could make at the moment. It was something she was going to ask the sergeant when they questioned her. Remembering the sergeant suddenly, she wondered why their captive wasn't kicking and screaming to warn her parents of the intruders. She intended to put both that question and the question as to why she had been targeted by city hall to her later.

Right now, her parents seemed to be processing the information.

"So, we needed a place to hide and we decided on here."

"Mom, Dad," came a voice from another room, "what's going on up-" The bunny came up from the downstairs area, a cup of either tea or coffee in her paws, and stopped when she beheld the scene in front of her. "Wha-wha-" she stuttered as she took everything in, dropping her cup in dumb shock. Her her sad, red eyes roamed before finally landing on Judy, a gasp of surprise escaping her when she saw her sister. "Y-you're alive!" she said brokenly, tears threatening to escape. She ran to Judy and hugged her tightly and sobbed.

Judy hugged her sororal sister uncertainly. "Yeah . . ." she started timidly, "I'm not dead. What made you think I was dead?"

The young bunny turned to her mother. "Mom and Dad said . . . ." She broke off as she waited for an explanation from  _anyone_. She had no idea  _what_  to think about the situation. And  _especially_  not of the conspicuously collarless savages in the house.

"Your sister," their father started as he addressed the newcomer, "says that somebody's trying to kill her." He paused. " _She_  says it came from city hall."

Her sister looked confused. "You don't believe her?"

"I'm not sure  _what_  to think. She just told us she's mated to a  _fox_."

She whirled around to look at Judy, stunned. "Are you serious?!"

"At this point," said Judy quickly, "I would like to remind you that I'm not dead which you all apparently thought I was a few seconds ago!"

The bunny just looked at her, a war of emotions being fought inside her. "And . . ." she started slowly, "you're saying that city hall really  _was_  trying to kill you?"

Judy looked over her sister's shoulder to her father. "Who told you that I was dead?"

"We got a call from . . . from Mayor Pricilla's assistant. Uh . . . Bellwether . . . ." He tried to recall the name and nodded certainly when he reassured himself of the name.

"So . . ." started Judy slowly, "that proves that city hall is in on it." She wanted to lead her parents carefully through the logic. "They didn't even wait to recover my body, they couldn't have waited to even try, because I'm here. They tried to murder me themselves and just assumed it was done and then, well—they just  _told_  you that I was dead."

Stu nodded to himself and Judy's mother came to stand beside him, taking his arm gently.

"And they wanted me dead," she pressed, "because I found out that they were manufacturing the fear of predators by turning them into ferals. Doesn't the fact that they wanted to kill me prove that . . . that something's not right in Zootopia? That they're corrupt?"

Working their way backwards, her parents nodded—begrudgingly accepting that what she was saying was the truth, though their misgivings and fear of the predators in their entrance hall had not evaporated in the slightest.

"I'm calling the police," said her sister flatly and went into the kitchen to grab the phone off the wall.

Judy followed her quickly. "Daisy, you can't!" she shouted as she snatched the phone away.

"Judy, I  _have_  to!" her sister shouted back. "If we get caught with these  _collarless_  savages we could be targeted, too!"

"But they'll arrest  _me_  too!"

Her sister paused as she struggled for the receiver, the coiled line stretching between the two of them.

"W-we could hide you here . . ." her sister trailed off.

"And can you guarantee that  _they_  would never say anything?" said Judy as she nodded to the crowd in the hall. It was below the belt, of course—Judy knew that none of them would ever willingly betray her. Or Nick.

Daisy thought for a moment before continuing. "I recognise the fox in there." She was whispering, though it made little difference since everyone had sharp ears. "He was on the news. After we got the call that you had . . ." her sister sobbed. "When we heard that you'd passed away, I turned on the news in my room to see if there was going to be anything about it—they didn't give us any details. They told us that that fox—the one with all the scars on his face—was at the centre of a drug ring that was turning savages into ferals!"

"It's actually city hall. I told mom and dad this already, but the government in Zootopia has been secretly boiling down night howlers-"

"Huh? What?"

Judy groaned. "Midnicampum holicithias. They've been boiling down the roots and using the broth to make a chemical that makes mammals go feral."

Daisy looked on in stunned silence.

"So I found out about it and they wanted to kill me for it. And now it seems like they're trying to frame Nick—Mr. Wilde—for it. Did they mention  _anything_  about night howlers? Or midnicampum holicithias?"

Her sister shook her head slowly.

"Then that means that they're still trying to pin this all on ferals. They did—in the news—didn't they?" Judy asked.

Daisy seemed to stare off into space, her head slowly moving from side to side as she seemed to be trying to work something out in her mind. She suddenly snatched the phone receiver from Judy's paw and held it for a moment as Judy looked on, saying and doing nothing.

Suddenly: "Mom, Dad," she started. She abruptly hung up the receiver. "We can't call anyone. I believe her." She smoothed out her nightgown as she stepped back into the hall. "I'll call everyone in the morning and let them know that Judy's alive and warn them that they can't tell  _anyone_!"

"No!" said Judy. "You can't tell them, not over the phone. I know that we're really far from Zootopia but we can't chance that there're animals listing who're in cahoots with them! They got their information on us somehow."

"So . . . ?" her sister trailed.

"So," said Judy certainly, "call them here. I know most everyone's moved away, but bring them here: They can  _only_  hear this in person."

Her sister nodded.

Her father shook his head as he tried to take in the depth of the situation. "I . . . I . . . ."

"Dad, Mom . . ." started Daisy slowly, "just go to bed. Thing's'll be clearer in the morning."

"I'm gonna call Honey," said Finnick as it seemed to him the matter had been to some degree settled.

"Oh yeah," started Judy as she perked up to her mom and dad, "other preds are going to be meeting here too."

"What?!" shouted her father. "That's  _too far_!"

"We need a place large enough to gather!"

"There's no way I'm letting a bunch of collarless freaks into  _my_  house!"

"Dad, if you would just listen!"

" _No_!" he shouted. "Not another word! Get out!"

Judy looked for a moment as though she'd been slapped but then stood her ground. "No."

"I'm your father and I-"

"I'm your  _daughter_! I'm a grown rabbit now and you're still treating me like a child!  _Listen_  to me! The government in Zootopia has been making ferals wear shock collars—not only that, they've been torturing them and killing them with  _bullets_! Executing them, just like tonight, in the streets! They can't move about freely, they're being forced to live in poverty and  _now_  they're being transformed into ferals and being made to kill each other; and  _all_  of this while the city hall is using this as an excuse to blame them and drive them out of the city! I know you wanted to raise me to be safe but you also raised me to be fair!

"I  _know_  you know that what's happening in the city and to them isn't fair! You want to uphold the law—that's great! But you always taught me and told me that the law needed to be based in morality—you  _always_  told me that. If predators started doing the same thing to us there'd be panic in the streets and we would scramble to fight them off!" She pointed at the group behind her. "Their lives are being threatened!" She looked at Wilde. "His son!" She broke off in a choked sob. "His son was probably killed tonight. How was that fair? What did  _he_  do to deserve that fate? What did any of them  _do_?"

Her father looked on, stunned at the picture she was painting for him.

"If there were only rules, Daddy, you might think to yourself, 'If all I do is follow the law, I won't get hurt.' But the cops I'm working with, with the murderers and corrupt officials I'm working for—the law doesn't apply to them! They tried to kill me and they would have gotten away with it if it hadn't been through sheer dumb luck!"

Her chest heaved and her face was flushed as she looked on.

"So yeah, we're going to stay here. We're  _all_  going to stay here. And if more animals come to us for help fleeing the city we're going to give it to them, damn it, because that's who we are! That's who I am—and I  _know_  you're the same. I know we're  _all_  the same!"

Her voice seemed to resonate through the hall.

She finished, quietly and subdued. "So if you want us gone, you'll have to turn in your daughter, too."

The silence that followed was resounding.

Nick suddenly spun her around. "Damn, you're hot!" he shouted as he kissed her fiercely—possessively—as he tipped her back before setting her on her feet again.

She was flushed even more, now; and she turned to regard the crowd behind her. She saw that the preds behind her now seemed to be standing a little taller.

She turned back to her parents and saw her father's expression. He seemed to be at war with himself, too. He looked up, somewhat sheepishly, and said. "You're right, but I . . ."

He was still holding on to his prejudice. Of course he did. Deep-seated feelings such as his were not so easily dismissed. He couldn't rid himself of them in spite of his daughter's impassioned speech.

"Do it for  _me_!" Judy implored. "If not for them then for me! You still trust  _me_ , right? You  _know_  I would never do anything that would hurt the family."

Again, he nodded. "Okay . . ." he started slowly, "for you. But!" he started as he cut off a premature celebration, "You keep them under control. Do they have collars?"

Judy tried not to scoff at the comment in the face of her father's relenting. Gathering as much patience as she could she said, "They don't. And even if they did, they wouldn't wear them here."

"They have to!"

"There's no law in Bunnyburrow," she insisted calmly, "that says they have to wear collars!" At least, she hoped there weren't a law.

Her father made to protest but she cut him off again.

"And even if there were, and if this large group of preds went into the DMV for collaring, it might raise a few questions." She absolutely despised having to checkmate her father but she  _had_  to advocate for them.

She touched her father's arm. "I'm not against you Dad, but circumstances are what they are—and desperate measures are called for. I know it's not what you want—so please just try to bear with me until we get this whole thing sorted out."

Her father seemed pleased with her bargain. He nodded again and pulled her into a hug. "I just want you to know that I worry about you."

"I know. I know," she said as she hugged back. "But trust me when I say that they're not bad."

He stood back and looked at her warmly.

"We're tired," she said abruptly, "and we need to sleep. Do you mind if we . . . ?"

Her father sighed. There was so much more that needed to be said, but it would keep till then. "You know where you're room is," he said and he turned to his wife who'd been in some thought as she listened to the exchange between them. "Is that branch of rooms empty?"

Bonnie nodded slowly as she looked at Judy timidly.

"Not entirely," said Daisy, "I sleep off Judy's room, remember?"

Her mother nodded apologetically. "You know how large the house is. Sorry, Dear," she said quickly.

Daisy smirked at her mother before turning to her father. "I'll lead them down," she said. "You two go to bed. It's really late," she yawned, "and you should get some shut-eye."

Her parents walked on through the tiny kitchen whispering to each other.

"Why do you guys have such a tiny kitchen?" asked Wilde as he craned his head to allow his gaze to follow where the two were walking.

"This is the one we have at ground level that we use for guests. You know, it'll make tea, coffee, toast and a small meal or snack. For the larger one, it's all down stairs."

She led them into another room off the living room whence she'd come and opened the door to what appeared to be a closet. Wilde was surprised to see that it led to a stairwell and he couldn't help but be surprised at the ingenuity. They went down two levels before starting down a hallway that stemmed off a large common area which in turn led to another, smaller common area that was built in a circle. Light could filter in through a dome that covered the roof, two stories up. All along the tall walls of the common area that stretched above them were doors leading to rooms. They spiralled up all the way to the top and were accessible by a staircase that followed them op.

 _'I guess when you have a tin of kids, you have to be a skilled craftsman to pack 'em all in,'_  thought Wilde to himself.

All the rooms, then, fed into area where there were couches and tables full of books. As they stepped into the common circle they could see that there were ten doors that were on their own level. To the far left was the landing of the staircase that led up.

"The far-right room is Judy's" yawned Daisy. "The rest of you can pick whichever one you want," she motioned. "I'm going to bed."

She wandered off to the left and up to the first landing of the stairs and then walked down to the fourth door from the right along the curved wall and entered.

As the door closed, the others standing there let their shoulders fall as the tension they didn't quite realise they were carrying left them in a sudden rush.

"Is this a house or a school?" asked Finnick as he let out a chuckle.

Judy walked into the centre of the common area and sat down on one of the sofas there. Nick followed her and took a seat next to her.

"I gotta tell ya', Carrots," he said, "it's so sexy when you switch on your righteous indignation button." He kissed her gently.

"Well," she said as she sighed, tilting her head back as Nick planted another soft kiss on her neck, "it's what I do to keep my lover safe."

He chuckled to himself and pulled back slightly as the others in the group sat down around them in the other chairs and sofas that were arranged in a semi-circle.

Nick turned to Finnick. "So, who's Honey?" he asked.

Wilde answered. "She's a spy and a contact we have in the city. What did she say, by the way?" he asked as he turned to Finnick.

"Not much," he replied. "Just that she was on her way."

"You gave her directions here?" asked Judy.

"Didn't need to. She has GPS. All she needed was the address."

"That's all she said?" asked Nick.

"Well," said Finnick as he turned away from Wilde, "she did seem kinda surprised that we had Hopps with us."

"Oh, shit, the trunk!" shouted Wolford as he suddenly shot up and dashed back the way they came along with Fangmeyer.

 _Everyone_  had forgotten that they'd left it in the living room. It'd've been funny if it hadn't been such a serious matter. After all the work that Judy'd been doing to try to earn her father's trust, and getting him to trust her associates by extension, it would've been a tragedy to have it all washed away the instant someone discovered the real Hopps in a trunk—handcuffed and slightly beaten.

The other's stayed put and waited for Wolford and Fangmeyer to return with it.

When they got back, they sat the trunk down in the midst of the circle and opened it.

Sgt. Hopps sat up, glaring at them.

"You remorseless bastards!" she hissed. "What the hell do you think you're doing here?!"

"We needed a place to stay," said Judy.

"Bullshit! This is a threat!"

When Judy only looked at her quizzically Hopps continued.

"Sending me a message that if I don't do as you say you'll kill my parents?!" she asked as if it were the obvious answer.

"Nope," said Nick nonchalantly as if he knew everything, "we just needed someplace we could wait before  _Honey_  gets here."

Hopps opened her mouth to answer but stopped herself, looking down pensively. She let out a sigh. "I need to go to the bathroom again," she said quietly.

"I'll take her," said Judy.

She took Hopps' arm and began to lead her.

"It's-" began Hopps.

"I know where it is," Judy interrupted quickly.

Hopps gave her a sidelong look and seemed somewhat incredulous. That expression and the sentiment that accompanied it quickly evaporated as Judy successfully navigated the twists and turns of the hallway, ending up at the restroom. Hopps was deeply troubled at the implications of this success but said nothing. She complied entirely and made no attempt to escape—even when she was led back to Wilde's trunk which had by now been lined with blankets and pillows off someone's bed.

"Why're the bed's here so huge? I mean, large enough to accommodate _us_?" asked Fangmeyer.

"So that we could double up if we ever needed to," said Judy. "Also, sometimes we had larger guests staying with us like bison or pigs—you know, fellow farmers—and we had to accommodate them. Not that we could accommodate a bison in this part of the house, of course. Just that we do have a place for larger prey."

Hopps got into the trunk slowly and sucked in a deep, resentful breath as the lid was closed.

"So did anybody else think that was weird?" asked Nick when Wilde finished locking it.

"What do you mean?" asked Wilde.

"Well," began Nick, "the fact that she isn't fighting?"

The others nodded.

"She's got a plan," said Clawhauser. "We have to figure out what it is."

"Not tonight!" said Nick and Wilde in unison.

This earned a brief chuckled from those gathered.

They were all so tired that without any pretense at politeness they all bade each other goodnight and chose rooms for themselves. Judy watched as Wilde, Fangmeyer, and Wolford decided which rooms they would take. The trio decided to sleep in the same room in order to guard Sgt. Hopps in the trunk. She watched the two wolves slowly bring it into the room Wilde had chosen before they closed the door.

Nick, she noticed, had already gone into the room that had been pointed out as being hers. Clawhauswer and Finnick chose separate rooms and bade each other and Judy good night.

Soon, it was just Judy alone in the common area.

It started as a crack in her spiritual fortitude. Soon, it became a larger. The dam of emotions within her was breaking as the stress from the whole day accompanied by a lack of sleep suddenly came crashing down on her—it's weight, crushing her. She started hyperventilating as emotion threatened to overrule her but maintained her composure as she slowly headed to the door Nick had gone through. She started out walking but broke into a quick skip, dashing toward her room as the anguish she felt flooded through her being. She was going to crash and she needed a soft place to land. She needed Nick!

She reached the door and yanked it open, stepped through it, and slammed it behind her, soundly.


	8. Confrontation

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Shocking discoveries are made when Hopps is at last confronted for her crimes aginst predators. And how does the mysterious Honey factor into all of this? There's missing information, and perhaps now it's time for Honey to reveal what she knows.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Special Acknowledgement: First and foremost I would like to thank Soildier for his help in preparing this chapter!
> 
> Author's Note: I know this chapter was long and coming but hope a nice, long one here will bate your anger and displeasure. The work of a grad student, or being nearly one, I hope, finds me well though bogged in work. My updates'll be coming probably every month or so, now that I'm busy with school. I hope the chapter's good for being so long in coming and hope my labour's not in vain.
> 
> I thank you, my reviewers, for being so kind in your encouragement. It has served me well in these last weeks as university has taken up my time: Particularly in writing.
> 
> A thanks to those who've liked and faved my work; I only hope this chapter finds a place amongst the ones you like the best.
> 
> Let me know if you have any questions I could answer or if there's anything I've left unclear that I need clarify.
> 
> To those who've liked and faved my story (followed also): you all deserve a hearty thanks from me!
> 
> General Statement: As I stated before, I welcome any and all criticism pertaining to the story. If I miss a bit of grammar here or there let me know so I can fix it. If there's something that strikes you a mistake or an error let me know so that I can fix that, too; and yes, I do fix mistakes that are pointed out to me. Speaking from personal experience, nothing can take me out of a story more than a misspelt word or a grammatical mistake—especially if they're too common. Any other comments, questions, or concerns? Feel free to PM me.
> 
> Disclaimer: This is a work of fanfiction and has no claim whatsoever on the characters of Nick Wilde and Judy Hopps who are the sole property of The Walt Disney Company. In no way have I sought money, monetary value, nor profit of any kind for the writing of this story.
> 
> Content Advisory: There is a Nick and Judy sex scene in here. This chapter is NOT SAFE FOR WORK!

* * *

 

_3:19 AM_

The bang as she slammed the door reverberated off the walls, lightly vibrating them, as she slumped against the frame. She closed her eyes as the stress from everything they'd seen and experienced the previous day, and the last few hours, weighed on her, suddenly. Through the whole day, she hadn't allowed herself to feel any of it. Experiencing it all at once now, she felt herself on the verge of emotional collapse.

The first thing she saw as she opened her eyes was Nick standing in the middle of the room, looking right at her and regarding her with a sad smile. He'd had a hunch that she'd be at the end of her emotional tether.

He'd had a hunch . . . because that's where he was himself.

The absolute improbability of this day was a slap in the face to everything he knew about his own reality. His mind had been swinging wildly like a pendulum, vacillating between madness and sober rationality, in the space of hours.

From waking up, confused and alone, near the stone bridge to being beaten—nearly to death—by prey animals who said he deserved it; from waking up and coming to terms with a city that had been trying to break him from the moment he'd explored it to being tortured—psychologically and physically—for no reason other than that he was a fox; from hearing the voice of the bunny he loved—seeing the words pour from her mouth—rebuke everything he thought he'd known about her to the feeling of hopelessness that had nearly drowned him: He'd been on the verge a total fucking breakdown.

Then all of a sudden . . . ! Then, all of a sudden, he'd awoken in that strange room in Wilde's office. And  _she_  was back—she was  _his_  again. And everything he'd convinced himself must have been the product of his own fanciful imaginings—that he'd found love, that he could be a good fox, that he didn't need to hustle anymore—were real  _after all_! All of a sudden, his reason for living had stormed back into his life.

Twice that day, he'd had to reorient his sense of reality and what he knew to be true and what he knew to be false.

Twice that day, he hadn't known what was real and what wasn't!

His mind was currently such a jumble of boiling emotions that he didn't know what to do with himself. The only thing that calmed the storm, that was doing  _any_  good at grounding his reality, was the fact that she was there with him.

Even so, Nick had allowed himself at various points the ability to vent his anger and frustration at the reality he was now facing, even if it were only to some small degree—Judy hadn't permitted herself that luxury all day. She'd had her phone with her and had been able to re-establish her sense of reality, but she hadn't let herself deal in any way with her immediate reactions to the new situation in which she'd found herself. She had stoically tamped down her initial reactions to the individuals she met, their prejudices, and the oppressive situation in which she found herself in order to stay out of danger. The pressures of doing so must have been astronomical!

The whole way to Bunnyburrow, she'd been keeping a lid on her feelings. Expressing—at most—her initial outrage and sadness at what she was learning. And through it all, she had maintained—or at least attempted to maintain—a sense of rationality, a core of strength, in order to be there for the others around her.

It hadn't gone unnoticed to him, for example, that Judy had listened carefully and patiently to Wilde's story about his fiancée's death. She'd been the perfect officer.

Now it was time for  _her_  to let go.

She stood there for a beat and took a deep breath. The instant her eyes took him in, she shattered. She wanted to run to him but kept herself in check, remembering his injuries, and instead hurried over to him as quickly as possible. Her feet thudded on the wooden floorboards beneath her as she fell into his arms, hugging him tightly. And he hugged her back just as fiercely as the façade broke, and the iron will of survival which she'd overused that day came crumbling down like a building with no foundation.

Luckily, Nick was there to catch her.

He held her as every reaction which she'd stifled during the day came pouring out of her as she gave vent to her terror, horror, anger, rage, and fear—all of which she had forced herself to hide.

She clutched at him tightly and started sobbing endlessly into his chest. "Nick!" she cried, "God, Nick! I don't know what to do! I . . . I don't understand! I don't . . . !" She broke off and trembled as her tears kept coming.

"Oh, God! Oh, God! This place is so awful!" she continued weakly.

It was all he could to keep himself from collapsing at that moment. More than once that day, and even within the last few hours they'd been together, they could have died. Nick couldn't help but chuff into Judy's neck as the weight of everything he'd had to face throughout the day came pouring out of him. His life had been threatened for being what he was. It was mind-numbing on so many levels. He was had been at a total loss when he came into this world. He just couldn't understand what was happening to him—why he was being treated the way he was. Even his attempts to regroup and come off as congenial when it came to the police had been met with overt hostility.

Torture, executions, spies, espionage, fear, hatred, anxiety—all of these things painted for them a land of horrors. They'd only come through it relatively safe and sound through sheer luck.

"I know it is, Carrots" he murmured comfortingly as he rubbed her back, "we'll get through it somehow," he murmured into her head.

He clutched her protectively as she buried her face in his chest.

She'd been dissociating the whole day, keeping events at an arm's length. It was a survival technique she'd used many times but never to this extent. She was inexperienced in this regard and had kept up her mask for far longer than she'd ever had to. Never had she had to hide her authentic self in quite that way  _ever_. She was  _naturally_  brave and daring but had rarely had to keep up that energy in the face of such obstacles as many times as she'd had to that day—where  _any_  suspicious behaviour could have led to her death.

Even Hopps, as awful as she'd been, had been betrayed by her comrades in the end. There was no loyalty amongst the animals with whom Judy had been working earlier in the morning.

Forgetting for a moment the immediate dangers their situation presented them with, the fact that they were both somehow in a new universe was positively mind-blowing. And neither of them had even really processed  _that_  yet.

She had forced herself to be practical and pragmatic in the face of what she sensed nearly right away was a dangerous situation in order to survive. Now it was late, and she was in his arms, in the safety of her parents' house, in her old room—it was  _here_  that she allowed her mask to fall.

In the space of a day, Nick thought, she'd had to come to terms with the fact that she was in a new reality, deal with an evil version of nearly everyone she knew, and try to navigate a minefield of questions and individuals— _none_  of whom she felt she could trust. For the majority of the day, she'd been alone and trapped within the confines of her own mind in order to keep from being detected.

They really were alone together, thought Nick.

By and by, her sobs died down and she backed away from him. He caressed her cheek with his paw and she leant into it.

"I don't know what came over me," she said softly as she continued to sniffle.

"You've been holding back the whole day, Carrots. You don't need to be sorry for anything."

She nodded slowly. "I-I've just been . . .  _afraid_ ," she admitted.

"Hey," he said slowly, calmingly, "we're safe at your parents' house. (Now there's something I never thought I'd say.)"

She chuckled and let out a sigh.

"It's late and we need to get some sleep," said Nick as he yawned.

Nick hopped into the bed but was surprised to see as he lay back that she had started undressing.

"C-Carrots, what're you doing?"

She turned back to him and gave a slight laugh when she saw the stunned look on his face.

"I'm getting out of my uniform. I've been wearing it all day!"

Nick had seen her naked plenty of times, but every time she undressed in front of him his heart started to pound. What on Earth had made him think that she would want to go to bed fully dressed?

 _'Well,'_  he thought,  _'two can play at that game.'_

He got out of bed and began undressing as well. He found, however, that it wasn't as sexy when he did it. Part of him was glad that she'd prompted him to do so, though: now he wouldn't have to have to be uncomfortable in his sleep.

She took her phone from her pants pocket and set it on the night table beside the bed and sighed when she checked the time. Nick hugged her warmly from behind and she turned into his fur and hugged him back, tightly.

As they got into bed together, Judy's body seemed to immediately relax as Nick wrapped his arms around her.

He could tell that she was still in a cloud of worry and anxiety—so was he—but he had no doubt that in time, as they slept, she would start to feel better.

Sleep found them quickly; and as they drifted off, the only thing in which their dreams took comfort was each other.

-.-.-.-

_8:08 AM_

Bonnie cringed at the shouts of anger, shock, and surprise that met her in the wake of the news she had just delivered.

She and her husband had gathered a significant group of her children and had been trying to get through everything that had happened the night before on top of the situation with which Judy had presented her. She had known that most everyone would be shocked by the news, but what really took her aback was the fury some seemed to be expressing.

As she tried to speak over the din, Stu came up behind her and put his hand on the small of her back in a show of support.

"Quiet!" he shouted to calm the crowd. "Now, I know that you know better than to shout at your mother!" He was absolutely furious. "What she's trying to say's important!"

"Is Judy really mated to a  _fox_?" said one sibling as he stood up.

"Are chompers really coming here?!" started a young girl.

"Quiet!" their father shouted, quite at the end of his patience. "Now you listen good, Jasper," he began as he addressed the male who'd spoken, "Your sister needs our help. And so do the animals she brought with her."

Jasper sat down amid more protests, mainly from the group of brothers.

"Dad, are you insane?" asked another male. "You can't just let strangers into our house! Mom just said you were planning on letting in  _more_  of those savages!"

"It's  _my_  house. Well, mine  _and_  your mother's," he corrected quickly. "And I thought you'd all be a little more grateful about the fact that your sister's alive."

"Yeah, and  _dangerous_!" emphasised Jasper.

"She's no sister of mine!" shouted another male behind him as a chorus of voices chimed in with support.

"She betrayed us!"

"Now we're all in danger."

"How  _could_  she put this on us?!"

Loud voices swoll with agreement while others protested, shouting the other's down.

"She's our sister!"

"We can't turn our backs!"

"We're a family!"

As the shouting became more heated, Stu and Bonnie turned and nodded to each other. They bent their ears back tightly, put their fingers in their mouths, and whistled loudly.

The mix of siblings shouted loudly and bent their ears back painfully, covering them, as the shrill sound pierced their hearing. Instantly, the cacophonous choir died leaving only grave silence in its wake.

Stu eyed them all sternly.

" _Judy_  is my  _daughter_!" he stated fiercely.

Bonnie took his arm and bit her bottom lip, admiring her husband's about-face on the subject.

She turned looked tearfully at the fractious boys.

"Would you rather she be dead like the news said she was?" she cried as she eyed Jasper. "Don't you remember what it felt like last night when we got the call and saw it on TV?" She covered her mouth and closed her eyes as the terrible memory swept over her. She took a moment to gather herself, wiping at her tears, before continuing on, bravely. "Our Judy was returned to us safe and sound  _by a group of predators._  The least we can do is be thankful that she's here at all. And if you really think being mated to a fox is so awful, consider it a small price to pay as long as we have her back."

Stu nodded. "I can't say I'm comfortable with all of this yet, but our Judy is the same Judy we raised, the same one many of you grew up with." He came toward the group. "You can't tell  _anyone_ ," he said vehemently as emotional tears touched the corners of his eyes at the thought of what almost was. He  _refused_  to let them fall, however. " _None_  of you are going to breathe a single word of this to anyone."

His word was final.

Much of the murmur in the room was stifled at that moment. None of the siblings gathered had ever seen their father—such a jovial and happy character in most circumstances—put his foot down so definitely.

Stu cleared his throat. "Judy told us that if we say anything, it can only be to each other—face to face. The lines are being watched," he finished.

"You  _can't_  ask us to go along with this!" pled the other young male.

"James," started Stu, "you don't really have a choice. It's either get them out of here and let them fend for themselves or take them in. For me, that's  _all_  this comes down to. And so help me if anything happens to her-!"

"But what about the rest of us?! We didn't ask for her to bring predators here! What about  _our_  safety?!"

"Whoa, wait a second!" said Daisy as she stood up now to face her brother, "Since when is this  _us_  versus  _Judy_? Judy  _is_  one of us!"

"Then she should have known better than to put the rest of us in danger!"

"Judy came to us for  _help_! Did you miss the part where the ZPD is trying to  _kill_  her?"

James looked on in silence.

"If it weren't for the fact that she came here with a bunch of preds and a fox as her . . . as her  _mate_  . . . I'll bet  _none_  of you would waste one  _second_  thinking about whether or not to help her. Am I right?"

She looked around the room at her siblings and saw many of them look away shamefully.

"I know it's hard to swallow," she said, "it's even repulsive . . . but this is what we have on our hands. None of you have any problems working with Gideon."

Jasper stood up now. "Gideon's not mating our sister! If he were, the rest of us," he gestured to his brothers, "would boycott him in a second!"

"Speak for yourself!" shouted one.

Jasper was about to retort when he was cut off.

"For the love of God!" started Stu, "We are  _not_  going to debate whether your sister is worth helping! If any one of you were in a situation as serious as hers," he said as he pointed at them, "you can bet that regardless of any personal feelings I might have, I would absolutely be there to help!"

He paused for a moment as he tried to collect his thoughts. "I'm not saying don't be mad at her," he said as he tried to cool down, "I'd rather you not be, but I can't tell any one of you how to feel. The fact of the matter is that none of you would rather she end up hurt or worse if we decided to throw her out, would you?"

Everyone was silent, and those who had been standing sat down. Seeing it that way, no one could argue. Even their displeasure at her having become mated to a fox was born of a need to protect their sister from a creature they saw as dangerous. Thankfully, in the end, Judy had been right—as much as her family may have hated it,  _none_  of them would have been willing to jeopardise her life.

The doorbell rang upstairs, and Bonnie left the room hesitantly as the group of rabbits continued their discussion, Stu doing his best to supply what details he could.

She went upstairs and had barely reached the upstairs living room and heard the doorbell ring again.

"Who is it?" she asked brightly as she strode down the hall. When there came no answer, she approached more cautiously and reached for the knob. She opened the door just a crack and let out a gasp at what she saw.

Before her stood a female badger in formal dress who stood somewhat taller than she.

The badger smiled and extended her paw. "You must be Mrs. Hopps," she said warmly as Bonnie opened the door more widely.

The rabbit nodded slightly and took the collarless female's paw. "And you are . . . ?" she asked slowly.

The badger's smile widened.

"I'm Honey."

-.-.-.-

_7:06 AM_

Judy opened her eyes, slowly coming awake as her internal alarm clock stirred her. She pricked her ears slightly as outside in the tiny common room, she could hear Wilde and Fangmeyer talking. She sighed to herself and wondered how they could be up so early after such a long night. She felt Nick at her back, holding her from behind in his strong arms and she snuggled into them. She smiled warmly to herself as she relaxed a little before gingerly reaching forward to pick up her phone to check the time. She nodded to herself, settling back into the near-total blackness of the room, feeling a sense of safety and familiarity there.

It was no surprise, she thought, that she was awake as she and Nick often took morning shifts. After such a long time, it had become normal for her to get up early—and today definitely seemed as though it were going to be a morning-shift type of day.

"You're awake?" asked Nick behind her.

Judy jerked surprise before letting out a sigh and settling back. She gently nudged him with her elbow hummed in response. "You too, huh?"

"Yeah," he yawned, "just seems like one o' those days."

He ran his paw down her side, caressing her lightly, letting it trail down her thigh before repeating the motion, petting her gently.

She hummed again contentedly and snuggled back into his body.

He lightly kissed her cheek. She smirked and turned her head back to him and kissed him lightly. Their kisses deepened each time, and she turned to lie on her back as Nick arched over her to kiss her more fully.

Judy hummed as she allowed Nick's paw to trail down her side and dip into the valley between her thighs. He broke the kiss slowly and regarded her carefully.

"Do you wanna . . . ?"

She nodded at his unspoken question and caressed his cheek. He dipped down and kissed her deeply as she arched into his paw.

She muffled into the kiss and dipped her own paw low to gently grip his steadily growing length.

The kisses became more heated until with a final, passionate kiss, she turned to face Nick. Nick pulled back for a moment and looked down at her.

"You are so cute," he said as he looked down at her, smiling warmly.

Judy laughed slightly, enjoying the playful tone in his voice. Over their time together, she had grown to love it when he called her that.

She nuzzled his neck as best she could and sighed as his paw continued to rub between her legs. She stretched and suddenly let out a gasp when Nick let one of his fingers gently dip into the soft folds of her nether region. Her head stretched back instinctively, gently. She moaned slightly as she shifted her top leg back to give Nick greater access to her core. He took advantage of her offering, softly forcing contact against her womanhood, his heart rate quickening as he continued.

The kissed fiercely, now, as the tension and the stress they'd both experienced the other day seeped away—the only thoughts they had were of each other.

"Nick . . ." she said breathlessly as she pulled away from another kiss. She let out a shuddering breath as pleasure coalesced at the point of contact with his paw, his name a plea for more.

Nick arched his body over hers and kissed her deeply as she raised her head to meet his lips. They continued like that, softly kissing as he felt her folds moisten, telltale dew forming at the joining of her thighs. She moaned lightly into his mouth and then let out a shuddering breath when he withdrew his lips as wave after gentle wave of pleasure swept over her.

She wanted more.

While Nick continued his massage, she laid back and slowly spread her legs. Judy allowed Nick to continue pawing her for a few moments more, simply breathing in and out a few moments, before she reached up to hold his shoulder and gently drew his upper body over her.

"Nick . . ." she trailed off somewhat shyly, "are you ready for lesson two?" She caught herself and immediately giggled at how corny she sounded to her own ears. She honestly couldn't believe she'd just said that.

Nick let out a gentle snicker, too, before leaning down to kiss her as he continued his delicate massage, finding her clit and very, very gently massaging its outer folds—even taking a moment to lick his paw to alleviate the roughness of his calloused fingers before rejoining their kisses.

Judy tore her mouth away and let out a passionate gasp of pleasure when she felt Nick's thumb touch a particularly sensitive spot, rubbing lightly but setting off a profoundly pleasurable sensation as he continued.

"Lesson two, Carrots? Really?" he said incredulously though heatedly as his eyes peered down at her through the darkness, watching her as she slowly lost control. He playfully laughed off her attempt at sultriness but stopped when he felt her paw draw him down to her still further, his heart skipping a beat at the sound of her beautiful voice:

"Nick, make love to me." She murmured her plea breathlessly as she tried to look up at Nick through the darkness, cursing her night sight as her paws reached out blindly to caress his face softly.

Something flared in Nick's chest at the earnestness in her tone. "A-are you sure you wanna . . . ?" He trailed off, somewhat unsure, but quickly cast off his insecurity a moment later as the events of their first night together flooded his memory, reminding him that he didn't need to be anxious about that particular act anymore.

Nick's keen eyesight could see her in the darkness and noted the look in her eyes. She nodded firmly in answer to his question and took a deep breath.

Before their first night together, sex had felt like an insurmountable barrier and not because she felt hung up about it—certainly Nick hadn't, she was sure; but because they'd been worried about their compatibility.

Nick would never have voiced his concerns before, but he'd been hanging onto more than a hint of hesitancy when it came to the thought of sex with Judy.

_'Judy!'_

She had been the sole figure in his life who'd saved him from himself and given him a better life. She had loved him and opened her heart to him, but if things had worked out that they didn't work together physically, though he might not have said anything, a part of him would have seen that as a potential sign indicating their incompatibility as a couple. Their society had been against them as a couple to begin with, and that had affected them both, if not overtly, then certainly subconsciously. Sex may not be everything, but it was a fool's errand to ignore its importance in a relationship. There was also no point in pretending that if they hadn't worked together well it would have left them and their relationship totally unaffected.

One angle to take, Nick thought, was to see the fact that it had been Judy who'd had to initiate them as a sign that she loved him more than he loved her; that maybe she'd had more faith and more confidence in their relationship where he didn't. But as he looked down at her, he knew that wasn't the truth. He loved her. He  _undoubtedly_  loved her.

No, the real reason he hadn't been the one to initiate them when he'd had the chance was that he was afraid of what it might have implied if the hadn't fit. More specifically, he'd been afraid of losing her. He had just been too used to things going wrong at the slightest opportunity. He still  _was_ , if the events of yesterday morning were to go by. His doubt might even have even been strong enough to undermine the sense of love that they had for one another. But banishing that foolish thought was the fact that things had now changed: Where their world and society had tried to get into their heads and pit them against each other, plaguing them with doubts, they now knew each other.

Even if they hadn't been compatible in  _that_  way, Nick thought, he knew that he would have  _made_  it work between them because he wanted  _her_. More than anything. He would have figured something out— _they_  would have figured something out. He  _knew_  it. And just in case, he knew Judy and knew she would  _never_  have let them succumb to their doubts. They were each other's foundation. They were partners in every way—the two of them against the world. And if he had known for certain that sex with Judy had been a possibility from the start, he would have had sex with her ages ago—and she'd certainly provided him ample opportunity to do so in the past.

As it was, they had taken each other's virginities in a natural stride on a night that had not only been marked in their minds as having made them mates in the physical sense but had also effectively evaporated all their fears concerning sex in the future. And, which is more important, it had banished their doubts about each other.

It was the reason why, now, as they turned to each other, their minds slipped easily from one emotion to the next, naturally sensing that this was the perfect moment to enjoy each other.

"Close your eyes for a moment. I wanna turn on a light," she whispered.

He nodded and closed his eyes as she reached over to the lamp on the nightstand and flicked it on before dimming it significantly for their eyes—especially Nick's.

She turned around to see him and felt her breath leave her. He was turned toward her, naked and handsome as ever. His strong arms and torso had become firm with training and shone through with a hint of muscle, giving a bit of shape to his generally lithe form.

Her own figure was slight and deceivingly frail-looking in the dim light.

Nick would've been lying if he said he didn't love the sight of her bare body. He loved the sight of her slightly rounded hips— _Lush!_ —the halting look in her face as she shrank under his gaze; loved the way her beautiful, grey chest rose and fell in anticipation. Her form truly was a vision, and it seized his chest that she was allowing him entrance to herself. It amazed him that he would be allowed to touch, caress, and possess something so beautiful; that he was allowed to be inside and temporarily a part of the seat of everything he had ever hoped his life would be—she was the throne of his love, his confidence, and his life. She wanted  _him_  to be part of  _her_.

Growling low in passion, he reached out and gently took one of her hips in his paw and felt the muscle there flex under his touch as he gently worked it. He ran his paw further up, along her waist, near her chest, before reaching her face and cupping it.

Wordlessly, he carefully moved above her, trying not to his tangle his legs with hers as her thighs widened to fit his slender waist between them. She put both her paws on his shoulders as he moved up and over, his hips and legs brushing along her intimate region in a way that filled her with the warmth of anticipation. He took a moment and straightened the blanket over them so that it covered their lower body before he returned his paws to their intimate work. Judy allowed her own paws to gently run down his strong chest before roaming back up carefully against the grain of his fur, creating a tingle of pleasure that shuddered its way down his spine. The tightening in his heart and the pool of want and need gnawing in his gut caused him to let out a possessive growl as he beheld her body, enjoying the sight of her slim waist as it disappeared beneath him.

She was so small compared to him—so beautiful! And she wanted  _him_. Her body was bare and on display for his eyes only with no hint of shame as she glanced up at him lovingly.

He adored the way she tilted her head up and looked down at all of him. He loved the look on her face as her eyes took him in—admiring him. An egoistic smile spread across his face as he watched her: she looked on him just as hungrily he did her.

He took a deep breath as she gently drew him down.

His instincts growled as the triumphant shout rang out in his mind at the vision of her beneath him:  _'Mate!'_

He lifted himself over her before pulling back slightly to rest most of his weight on his shins and left paw while carefully putting himself at her entrance with his right. Any trepidation or hesitancy he might've had had evaporated on the night they'd first made love. He smirked to himself—When they'd realised they'd fit, he thought.

The events of the other day had nailed into his heart and mind one of the truest lessons: Never let a good moment go to waste.

He intended to follow through on that, now.

He slid the tip of his red, tapered member in and out of her warm flesh before stroking in deeply and removed his paw, drawing musical hums of pleasure from her as he rocked his hips. He pulled almost all the way out and stroked at her entrance as he relished the feeling of dipping just inside her, again and again, the sensation washing him in a satisfying wave of desire. He hardened even more as he continued, his chest and torso beginning to burn as every fibre of his being longed to be within her.

In spite of his confidence, he was trembling

Her breathless, wanton sighs were a call to him. He felt like a king! He was dangerous to her. He was a natural enemy of hers—But now no longer. Now, he was her lover. He could wound her or hurt her and yet here she was giving him her most intimate embrace, trusting him with her heart and soul. While it may have sounded odd, he nodded to himself that that was exactly right— _no one_  had ever seen this side of her, and even if they had, she was giving this to him now. No one had ever loved or wanted him as she did, and he swore to himself right then that he would do everything he could to show her that he loved her as much as she loved him.

He held himself aloft, his paws resting his weight on the mattress on either side of her hips, not totally over her body, but letting his hips do the work now as he continued to relish the incredible sensation of her folds as they parted around his member as he thrust slowly for a few moments—there was nothing like that initial sensation to him! And the quiet moans that were drawn from Judy's lips encouraged him in this play as he dipped in a little deeper sometimes, before pulling back slightly.

"Nick?" she murmured as she looked up at him.

He looked down at her, taking his focus away from their lower halves.

"Yeah?" he asked.

"Um . . . that feels really good," she said shyly as she looked up at him. She felt silly telling him that and couldn't help but feel embarrassed. She shouldn't, though!

Nick sensed her hesitancy and nuzzled her reassuringly as his hips continued their movements. He didn't want her to feel ashamed to tell him what she liked—that she liked what he was doing. He didn't want her to feel embarrassed to tell him these things. If his cock were able to make her feel as good as she made him feel, he would do anything he could to do what felt good for her.

She shouldn't be ashamed of anything with him.

"Hey, it's okay, Carrots," he said calmly. He kissed her lightly, hoping to ease her shyness. "You mean, you like what I'm doing?" he asked carefully.

She nodded gratefully, an easy smile returning to her face.

"You want me to keep doing it?" he asked as he looked down at her adoringly.

"Yeah," she said, still in her shy voice, "for a little bit," she finished as he smiled down at her.

He nodded and leant down over her, kissing her lightly before she pulled him into a deeper kiss.

"God, Nick, that feels good," she moaned out as he continued.

At last, when they'd had enough, and she felt she was ready enough for him, he sank himself into her deeply, hilting himself and murmuring sweet nothings as he gently lowered his body over hers—the sensation of being fully enveloped by her warmth earning a possessive snarl from him as she writhed.

She felt the gentle pressure of his strong chest touch against hers and felt loved as his strong arms on either side of her focused her attention on him. She ran her paws up his strong biceps once or twice before she wrapped them gently around his back.

He kissed her lightly, her soft lips kissing back tenderly even as her body vibrated with pleasure at the feeling of being filled by him. She gave a muffled cry of pleasure and started pushing her hips back up to grind them against his as her body instinctively told her to move. He snickered slightly at her eagerness, and so did she as her ears tinted with colour. He kissed her lightly and ground back, matching the pressure, pushing his own hips against her with a strong yet gentle force as he began to rock them back and forth.

Immediately she let out a sharp moan that she quickly buried in his shoulder and was met with his scent, feeling a gentle longing in her heart as his mingled with hers.

Her body positively thrummed as in every way he filled her—His scent and smell only feeding the flame of desire in her core as it reminded her of comfort, his gentle strength, love, and protection.

This was only the second time he'd made love and teasing out what she did and didn't like was going to be one of the most enjoyable cases he'd ever worked. She loved the way he ground his hips against her opening, the soft fur rubbing firmly against the sensitive spot there sending her rather quickly to the next level. She moaned as he continued that motion a little longer, watching her reaction as and testing out which ways seemed to get the better reaction. He continued the gyration of his hips against her when he saw how much she seemed to like it.

He let out a moan himself as the motion drove up his passion and pleasure.

"Nick, I . . . d-don't stop!" she exclaimed in a hushed whisper as his grinding thrusts continued.

Nick obliged, but it wasn't long before he felt the need to thrust more deeply. His mind started going blank as the soft ridges of her passage seemed to wrap themselves around his cock as with each thrust her folds created a delicious friction. It was too much now: He couldn't resist any longer! He withdrew himself, nearly pulling out, and ran the tip of his member in and out, just at her entrance, before sinking in to the hilt again and making a few short thrusts deep within her, interspersing it every now and again with the grinding she seemed to love.

"Judy! God!" he exclaimed through grit teeth, "I-I've wanted you . . . I've wanted this for so long, you have no id-"

He shouted as his length found the right angle within her. He buried his muzzle in her shoulder and grunted as his thrusts came quicker. "Judy! God, Judy! I love you!"

He arched above her and held himself up on his forearms. They looked into each others' eyes, the deep green of his reflecting endlessly in her violet ones. She was gorgeous!—and at that moment there was nothing more erotic than the sight of her beneath him, her beautiful face a mask of love for him as he continued to thrust. They were floating in a cloud of pleasure, away in their own little world in which they saw nothing but each other.

He kissed her deeply and she wrapped her arms around his strong shoulders as they held the kiss. They kissed again and again, drinking from each others' lips as from a never ending well of passion.

"I love you Nick!" she moaned when they broke off the kiss.

He held her tightly and quickened his thrusts in response. "I love you, Judy! God, I'll never get enough of loving you!" he moaned as nuzzled her neck. He'd been trying to go slow, but she was driving him to the edge faster than he thought.

He slowed his hips, wanting to prolong their union as long as he could. For the life of him, he couldn't get enough of being inside her!

Words failed them as their language became nothing more than gasps and groans. They rained kisses on each other and spoke sweet nothings as they deepened their intimate embrace.

She moaned beneath him, reveling in everything he was doing to her, gasping as she felt herself loosening around him. He kissed her deeply again, and she wrapped an arm around his neck as he continued.

They broke off the kiss and gasped as they looked at each other, their eyes meeting as another wave pleasure swept over them before leaning in together and kissing again.

The sensation of his filling her completely wasn't enough. She wanted  _all_  of him! And as he worked his length within her, she let out stifled cries of pleasure as he strove to give it to her.

He groaned and let out a pleasured gasp as he felt himself gliding within her walls, pushing her folds apart with each thrust as they swept across his sensitive length. He filled her as much as he could, wanting to nestle his manhood within her as deeply as possible. He felt the spongy flesh near the end of her passage and growled at its implication as the folds there seemed to envelop his sensitive tip as it plumbed her depths. The exquisite sensation drew a low groan from him as it not only increased the sharp pleasure he derove from everything else but served as a reminder that she wanted him as much as he wanted her.

Her body wanted his essence, his seed. She wanted him and loved him so much she was willing to share her body with him not only at that moment but for the rest of the day. The thought of her absorbing and holding onto him for any length of time after they'd coupled drove him absolutely wild!

"Judy!" he growled primally through his clenched teeth at the thought of filling her, the idea kicking off a feeling of intense yearning as he subconsciously sped up the slow and methodical thrusts of his hips he'd been striving for.

Judy stifled another moan into his shoulder, bit her lower lip tightly, and began to gasp repeatedly. She threw her head back and arched herself into him, closing her eyes tightly as her fox hit the pleasurably sensitive flesh in the depths of her womanhood, her pleasure spiralling higher and higher each time he filled her—Nick's growls and shuddering breaths filling her with an unnameable satisfaction as his movements intensified.

She felt the muscles of his back ripple beneath her paws—felt the way his arms and paws seemed to be nearly clutching her now. She felt him pull away, though, as his movements seemed to speed up and slow down in a maddening dance that kept her on the edge of a precipice. At last, she opened her eyes to see him looking down at her intently, his green eyes shimmering with emotion.

He'd been overcome with a strong desire to see where their bodies were joined and had pushed himself up on his paws. He'd looked down between them, relishing the sight of their union for a few moments before turning his eyes to watch the emotions she was feeling wash across her face: She enjoyed what he was doing to her! He saw her eyes flash open, their deep purple hues telling him everything she felt for him at that moment as she regarded him.

In that instant, she was the most beautiful thing he'd ever seen!

She loved him!

"You have no idea how sexy you are!" he growled as he leant in and kissed her deeply, passionately, lovingly before pulling away to look down at their joining hips again. After a moment he looked back at her heatedly, his eyes seeming to deepen their green colour. She could see in his eyes everything he felt for her—his lust, his need for her, his hope to please her, and his desperate love and adoration.

"You have no idea how beautiful you are!" he growled as he bent low and kissed her longingly. "You're everything I ever wanted!"

His confessions stirred her love for him. She could feel it all!

"Nick . . . !" she uttered as the haze of pleasure overtook her. She returned his look full force as she arched into his ardent thrusts, feeling profoundly complete and whole at the feel of his hips and intimate regions pressing tightly against hers.

"Judy . . . !" he exclaimed before bringing his lips to her mouth. It would never be enough! They kissed again, heatedly as a red blush overtook them, locked like that for some moments more before Nick broke off.

"God, you have no idea what you do to me!" as he suddenly hunched over her. "Oh, God! Judy!" he ground out as he took her smell—the aroma of her arousal as well as the bonding scent sending signals to his mind and heart that the time was coming near . . . .

"Judy . . . !" he strangled out again as his passion for her deepened.

"Yes!" she cried out softly in pleasure. "Nick! Say my name again and again!"

"Judy!" he shouted through grit teeth as he continued to thrust into her waiting body. "Judy!" he growled again, shakily, as their love enveloped them, holding them together tightly as he continued to breathe her name as often as breath would allow. Her name was a prayer on his lips that led him to Salvation.

He let out a sudden cry of pleasure and arched himself into her to the hilt—his instincts could no longer bear it—and quickly tilted her hips slightly upward before pistoning his thrusts as he drove them both toward the finish.

God, he needed this! Needed  _her_!

She was right there with him, meeting him thrust for thrust, moaning at the delectable, rapid pace.

He was on the edge, his sharp thrusts reaching deeper as he drove himself into her. Her intimate folds loosened more, preparing for what her body knew was coming next—

His hips were flush against hers, his sheath against her entrance, and he thanked all the stars in Heaven when he felt his knot form.

He growled in profound satisfaction as he felt it start to slip from the confines of his sheath, passing into the snug warmth of her body.

"Tell me what you want Judy! God, tell me that you want me!" he said, his voice strained with need, his ears pinned back, his eyes shut tight.

She was at her peak—nearly there! "Oh God, Nick!" she cried as she felt his knot push into her. She heard his strained demand, his desire striking a chord within the deepest regions of her being.

"I . . ." she struggled through the haze of pleasure as his hips ground against hers, his forming knot increasing the maddening pressure within her. She buried her muzzle in the beautiful red fur of his shoulder as she called his name. "Nick! I . . . I want you! I want you so bad!" she shouted wantonly as she pushed up against his bulb.

Though muffled, it was just what he needed to hear as his knot sank itself into her folds. He closed his eyes tightly, clenched his jaw and grit his teeth, and felt his feet twitch as they dug into the sheets beneath him when for a few moments he felt it swish around freely earning a guttural cry from him.

 _'God! Yes! There it is!'_ his mind shouted he felt his whole member stiffen and swell within her, triggered by her body, his pleasure intensifying—He didn't know he could be that hard!

_'So close!'_

And then he couldn't move anymore.

Nick had only barely felt the tie when the tension coiling within him spiked suddenly, tightening in him as he reached and fell past the point of no return.

"Fuck!" he shouted as the taught bow of tension in him snapped, blasting through him as shudders of pleasure bolted up his spine in wave after wave as he forced himself into his mate, driving himself into her as deeply as he could in one final thrust, hunching over her body and burying his face in her shoulder, taking in her scent deeply, as he let out shout after strangled shout of pleasure as emptied himself into her. The claws on his feet dug hard into the mattress, his paws holding her in place, as he strove to give her everything he could from his depths as her soft folds clenched and gripped him.

Judy's world shattered around her as the wave of pleasure that had swept Nick up took her with it, battering her senses in sheer delight as it washed over her again and again! She cried out with a loud shout of joy at the sensation of being tied with him as it bound them and let fly the deep and gripping contractions that pounded through her—emanating from where she and her lover were joined and resounding throughout her body like a wave of white-hot light. Being with him, loving him, just having him with her as they were truly meant to be, was everything she could have ever wanted in that moment.

She arched her back and hips into him, wrapping her legs around his waist tightly, as he pushed down with his.

She let out a kind of short laugh as she felt his member throb within her, moaning at the inner warmth as he came inside her.

After a few moments, she was left heaving deeply and heard Nick gasping for breath next to her. Her pleasure was subsiding but the hum delight in her core continued to vibrate through her warmly. She very well could have gone for another round, but she knew they'd be tied for a while.

She languidly caressed his back, threading her fingers through his fur, as she settled into the afterglow.

Nick was in the clouds. He was floating with her in his arms, slowly and gently, high above the Earth and its troubles.

Though the main event was over, he still grit his teeth now and again as his cock throbbed pleasurably within his mate, still coming.

He sighed to himself as he realised this was going to take a while. Not that he was complaining in the slightest. He wouldn't have traded any chance to have her in his arms a little bit longer for any reason.

He leaned down and kissed her gently, their kisses slow and loving more than passionate as they had been before. He shivered in delight at the continuous, slow movements her fingers made as she caressed his back. He snuggled her, nuzzling her with his nose as he instinctively mingled their scents.

She sighed wistfully as did so and gradually felt as her pounding heart slowed and smiled to herself.

She could still feel him throbbing, still hear him letting out gasps and groans of pleasure in the aftermath—while the tension had snapped in him, draining from his muscles, and ebbed away, his orgasm hadn't.

He was awash in pleasure. He had no idea it was possible to come this long but realised it had something to do with the fact that he had a mate now. His body had instinctively recognised that.

"Is it gonna stop?" asked Judy after a few minutes, half jokingly. She raised an eyebrow and snuggled into him, loving the feel of him on top of her. She didn't mind in the slightest that he was in the midst of his pleasure; it was simply that she was just as surprised as he was.

Nick chuckled into her shoulder. "Well . . ." his gravelly voice strained, "I guess my cock thinks we're trying for kits."

He nuzzled her neck and kissed her there before raising himself on his elbows and kissing her languidly. She kissed him back lightly, petting his head gently, continuing to exchange their kisses continuing lovingly in the afterglow.

Gently, Nick rolled them to their sides before shifting and rolling them so that he was on his back. She flattened himself on his chest, running her fingers languidly through his fur, using her fingers to feel the strength of his muscles beneath her.

"We need to do that again . . ." she murmured.

Nick chuckled. "Oh, you can  _bet_  on it. We are  _definitely_  doing that again," he finished breathlessly. He reached down and pet her lightly, running his paws down her back. "Ah, Carrots, what would I do without you?"

She chuckled and kissed his chest. "I'm glad we woke up on schedule," she said softly, "but I'm honestly still tired. Especially  _now_ ," she laughed.

Nick nodded. "We  _do_  get to actually sleep in, today."

"This is what the morning after our first time should've been like," she murmured sadly.

"Hey, don't think about that," he said gently as he ran a paw through the fur on her back. She nodded slightly against his chest. Unable to keep his mind from wandering, he couldn't help but go over what they'd just done in his mind. "I . . . I wasn't too rough with you, was I?" he asked softly in their tender afterglow.

She shook her head. "No, you weren't," she said softly. "Why?" she asked, raising herself up slightly to look into his warm eyes.

"Because," he said as he softly ran his paw up down her hip and thighs in a tender caress, "you're small, and I want to be gentle with you."

A lump formed in her chest and she leaned forward, kissing him deeply as his arms wrapped around her.

She broke off the kiss. "It was good," she said breathlessly, her tone telling him that it was more than "just good".

" _You_  were wonderful," she spoke with a gentle certainty. It made her feel that much safer in his arms knowing that he was trying to make their coupling as good for both of them.

"I want you to know," he said as she lay back down on him, "how much I love you. I just want you to be happy. With our life together."

She nodded and smiled. She felt peaceful when he was like this: When it was just the two of them together—When he dropped his guard and let her see him. He had to keep up his façade of affability and confidence so often in front of others that being with him when he was just himself felt rare. Those moments of domestic life were the real moments they had come to cherish over the span of their relationship—

It was the way he made her feel when he asked her if she wanted a little more ice cream or the way she made him feel when she put her hand on his shoulder and asked if he were feeling alright. It was the way she'd brew coffee for them in the morning, how she always kept her small fridge stocked with his favourite foods. She had opened up her life to him and said, "Everything I have is yours," and he had striven to do the same for her. What other choice had he had in the face of such tenderness but to open himself to her, too? She'd made him love her.

It was this same domestic comfort with each other that settled them into their current silence.

She snuggled down into his body and let her fingers play through the fur on his chest. She couldn't help but see bruises marring the skin that lay beneath. Seeing them served as a mild shock to the peace they'd seemed to be settling into.

She perked up. "Aren't you still in pain?" she asked. "From yesterday?"

He nodded slightly. "Yeah, I am. Kinda," he said slowly. He certainly hadn't given any indication that he was in any pain while they were making love.

"Then why . . . ?" she asked softly, now worried that  _she'd_  hurt  _him_.

Nick snickered. "You underestimate my resilience," he smirked.

"No, I don't!" she chuckled, "But this place," she said, sobering a bit, "it really could've killed you." She couldn't help it as the spectre of death entered her thoughts. The chances of death and failure were so great, here.

He grimaced at her expression. "Hey," he said gently, his voice warming through her, "I got through it. We both did. At least know what to expect, now." He kissed the top of her head. "I'm here now, aren't I?"

"Yeah," she snuggled into him. "Just don't get into any more trouble. You know I'd do anything to get you out of trouble, right?"

He paused for a moment, and she rose up slightly to look at him. He caressed the side of her face gently with the back of his claws. "Yeah. I would do the same for you. And . . ." he started hesitantly and somewhat fearfully, ". . . I know you'd do the same for me."

"Anything," she said quietly, "to do the right thing."

"Even if you end up hurt?" he asked. He knew the answer already

He tried to swallow the lump in his throat as he recalled the time they'd busted a drug deal. He'd never forget the fear he'd felt when she chased after one of the gang members nor the relief he felt when she came back, slowly dragging a snoring ocelot behind her. When they'd gotten back to the station that evening, she filled out the paperwork like usual and then went home with him.

He noticed that she'd said nothing to him about her fight with the feline and described it as being routine, but noticed how quiet she was about the incident. Especially when he saw her taking a switchblade to the evidence locker. He made a point of trying to ignore the tightening of anxiety in his chest when she'd told him later that evening that the ocelot had attacked her with it. He'd swiped her fur, but it was nothing serious. They'd gone to his apartment that evening for some dinner and fun and she and it was clear she didn't wanna talk about it. It wasn't until they were showering together the following morning that he noticed it. It had been under her fur, so he hadn't seen it:

While shampooing her head and neck, he felt something like a few grains of sand stuck in the fur on her neck. He tried tugging on a few to work them out but stopped when Judy cried out in pain as it seemed they were so well embedded that he was accidentally pulling out a few strands of her fur, too. He turned her toward him and looked to see what they were. He knelt down and searched through her fur till he found the source: To his shock and horror, he found that they were tiny granules of dried blood.

He'd parted the fur to look beneath as she looked at him sidelong, somewhat confused. He was stunned as he could just barely make out a shallow scratch that ran along the right side of her throat. It wasn't the cut that had seized him but the idea that, had the cut been larger, had she been a mite slower in her reaction, her life might have ended on the floor of that drug house. For the rest of the day he hadn't so much as let her out of his sight.

Then, as now, he didn't want to dwell on the idea that she could be harmed in any way—even for the love of him. But he knew she couldn't make that promise. Already since being here she'd put her life on the line for him. He'd've done the same for her had their situations been reversed.

"I have to," she said, looking down at him intently.

He nodded slowly. "Judy, just no leave me again," he pled softly as he held her.

"I won't," she murmured as she relaxed herself onto him again. "Hmm . . . Nick . . ." she hummed out as she rested. She could hear his breathing and the gradual slowing of his heart.

She pushed herself up again slightly and looked down at him. "So, how does this compare with your first time?" she asked slightly sultrily.

Nick's face instantly split: he let his muzzle gape open, lolled his tongue out the side, and rolled his eyes into the back of his head.

Judy let out a burst of hearty laughter that didn't die away for a few moments. He growled and gently reached up to hold her and gently rolled them to the side.

Calming, he nuzzled her before pulling away. "We should try to get some more sleep," he sighed as he ran his left paw along her hips and waist.

She nodded. "We definitely have to get some more rest. I mean, we have to be up later."

Nick nodded, closing his eyes gently as he pulled his bunny closer after turning off the light.

-.-.-.-

_8:13 AM_

A loud banging on the door of their room woke them and they jumped awake.

Judy skillfully turned herself at the waist, feeling herself still tied with Nick, as she spun back to grab her phone and look at the time.

"Who is it?" called Nick.

"It's me, Wolford!" came a deep voice. "We just got word that Honey's here. We're all gonna have a meeting down here in a few minutes."

Judy looked at the door quizzically. "What do you mean? Who else is gonna be there?"

"Well, your mom and dad. But they won't be down for a while."

"I think we're gonna wanna do it in private!" she called back. "Maybe ask my mom if we can open up one of the big rooms?"

"I'll ask and see what's what," he shouted back.

Judy heard him step away from the door and she turned back to Nick with a pointed expression on her face.

"Hey, there's nothing  _I_  can do. My dick has a mind of its own!"

In spite of the difficulty, they tried working free. It took about five minutes for things to settle down enough for them to come apart.

"Do you have a rag or something? We need to clean up a little," said Nick as he looked around the room.

"Cover your eyes," said Judy as she reached for the light switch.

Nick shielded his face as she turned up the dimmer to light the whole room.

She hopped out of bed to have a look in the closet.

Nick looked back at the bed but saw nothing that needed to be cleaned before looking back to Judy.

He admired her rear as she bent down and reached in to take out two towels from the bottom shelf, handing one to him. They quickly wiped themselves down as best they could when they were startled by another loud knock at the door.

"Would you two hurry up?! We're all waiting for you!" It was Wolford again and he seemed agitated by something, though of course, it was impossible to know what.

"Sorry," said Nick sheepishly as they both started dressing. He turned to Judy and whispered. "I wouldn't've started anything if I'd known we were going to have to be up in an hour."

"It's fine!" said Judy calmingly. "It really is," she smiled. She didn't want either of them to worry as she attempted to put on a brave face.

"Did my mom say anything about the room?" called Judy to the door.

There came no answer, and as Judy made to put on her shirt, she frowned. She shrugged and continued quickly, however, as she was almost done. She finished buttoning up her policeman blues and leant up to give Nick a quick kiss as he finished with his own shirt. He wrapped his arms around her and hugged her softly. She smiled and snuggled in to him.

"You're sweet for saying that it's not a problem," said Nick, "but we're gonna get into trouble someday."

Judy shrugged. "Probably, but it'll make for a funny story," she giggled. "We're just lucky they didn't come for us right after!"

She blushed and he kissed her again, caressing her cheek lightly, before pulling away as they finished donning their clothes.

Judy thought about putting on her vest but decided not to.  _'No need for pointless clothing,'_  she thought.

They went to the door and kissed deeply one last time.

As she reached for the doorknob, she could see the change take place in Nick—saw his mask come up, his signature smirk coming back to his lips as he prepared to meet the world. She felt her own shields come up, too. She was surprised when she felt Nick's paw at her back, rubbing her gently. He'd been watching her, too, and had seen the moment when her defences returned. He shared a look with her—a knowing look—and she both hated and love it. Hated it because it was a look that said, "Now we have to hide ourselves again—Now, we have to guard our inner selves." And loved it because it was a look of understanding—a look that confirmed that they were in this together, and more than that, that they were kindred spirits in this or any other world. Both of them were hiding, both of them had each other's backs, both of them were willing to sacrifice for each other. They  _knew_  each other.

With that, Judy turned the knob and opened the door to step out into the common room with her partner, steeling herself to greet the group of predators awaiting them.

"Sorry we're a little late," said Nick as they walked out, "we just took a bit longer getting dress-" He stopped in his tracks and closed his mouth abruptly when he saw the room was full of Judy's brothers—a group of about twenty or so. Judy felt herself go especially pale beneath her fur when she noticed her mother standing off to the left with a thankfully clueless look on her face, the implication of Nick's words bypassing her.

Wilde, who was standing tall amid the group of rabbits next to Wolford and Fangmeyer, hissed air between his teeth. "See . . ." he began slowly "I don't think you should've said that."

Nick felt his life fading away before his eyes.  _'Well, shit.'_

There was a beat of silence before the room suddenly erupted in a din of anger!

"You son of a bitch!" shouted one who suddenly lurched forward in a quick move to get at Nick.

Judy quickly stepped up front to block anyone's path. "Don't you hurt him!" she shouted, inwardly trembling at the savage expression on the faces of her siblings as their individual shouts and insults were lost in a choir of anger.

Another jerked forward as he tried to break free as other's tried to hold him back. "Don't you fuckin' talk about our sister that way!"

"Don't!" shouted some others near him as he struggled to break free. "He could kill you!"

"You keep your mouth shut you filthy fox," he continued, "and keep your paws off her! Let me loose! You heard what he said; let me loose!" the rabbit shouted as he continued to struggle.

"Why?" cried Bonnie, "what did he say?"

The shouting ceased as quickly as it'd begun as they all turned to look at their mother.

"Nothing!" they all said in a quick unison as they pinned their ears back. It would've been comical if not for the fact that Nick was relatively certain that  _all_  of her brothers were planning on ripping him apart at their earliest convenience. He scanned the room and was relieved to see that Judy's father was  _not_  present at the gathering.

Judy as her eyes landed on her mother, worriedly. "You told them?" she asked somewhat timidly.

"I had to," she began in a calming tone. "They were asking me why you were sleeping in the same room as a fox," she continued, her tone begging Judy to understand.

"Tell us it's not true Judy!" shouted the one who'd been struggling only moments before. He stood tall amongst his brothers and was easily the strongest of those present.

Judy looked back with a mix of shock and shyness. "It's true," she said quietly. "We've been together for a while." She spoke barely above the whisper under the assault of their glares.

Several scoffed in disgust, many of them turning away from her.

Judy swayed and felt she was on the verge of tears when she felt Nick put his paws on her shoulder from behind. She shrank back from the crowd, slightly, and into the fox.

Judy felt in her gut that, in reality, their reaction to Nick had  _nothing_  to do with anything he had done to them personally and more to do with the fact that he'd thrown their relationship in their faces. In her stubbornness, she took a more prominent stance in front of him.

Judy watched her as her mother tried to calm her brothers and make her way through her children to the large bunny who eyed Nick with a death glare.

"Jasper," said Bonnie, "he's probably very ni-"

"Excuse me!" came a feminine voice down the hall, "I hope you don't mind, but I've never been particularly patient."

Everyone in the common room turned to look as a badger in her late twenties came out of the hallway, striding forward confidently and surely.

"And shouting makes me nervous," she continued. She smiled at the room and stopped for a moment as she looked around.

As Nick took her in, he was at once, both impressed and intimidated by her. Her relatively small stature compared with those of larger predators did nothing to belie her serious composure. Neither did her seemingly genuine smile.

The bunnies in the common area instinctively made way for her as she started forward again, though her bearing was anything but threatening—it was all in the way she carried herself.

She made a way toward Nick but stopped for a moment when she caught a good look at him.

"No, this isn't right," she said flatly. She looked around her and saw Wilde standing head and shoulders above the crowd of rabbits. She took a good look at him before turning back to Nick, then back to Wilde again.

"Wolford, Fangmeyer," she started slowly, "who is he?" she gestured at Nick with the side of her head.

"We're calling him P," said Fangmeyer.

"First thing: Think up a better name for him. But more important, he says he's Nick Wilde?" she asked. Her tone was no-nonsense and to the point. She had come to make sense of the situation and that was  _precisely_  what she was going to do.

The pair of them nodded.

"Did you check his scent?"

"He smelled exactly like him," said Wolford.

"That can't be," she replied.

"It's true," he insisted.

"Then there's something wrong with your nose." It was a statement of fact. "You, too?" she asked as she looked at Fangmeyer.

He nodded slowly.

She shook her head to herself before looking back up. "Have you checked him recently? For how long has he 'smelled exactly like Nick?'"

Fangmeyer tried to think back. "Uh . . ."

"Was it eight-ish?" asked Wolford.

"Something like that. I remember calling someone from the van at eight-fifteen if that helps."

"I'm sorry?" she asked, somewhat lost.

"We picked him up out of the alley at around eight-ish. A little before eight-fifteen," said Fangmeyer as he clarified.

"Since that time, he's smelled like Nick?" she asked.

"Well, yeah!" said Wolford. "I have a good nose. I know I do. There's no way we're wrong."

Honey pursed her lips. "Check him now," she said after a moment of thought.

Wolford walked forward slowly as the bunnies parted around him.

"You, too," she said to Fangmeyer.

She came forward herself through the group, at last giving Judy full view of her.

Judy let out a gasp of shock "You! You're-!"

"Ah, yes," said Honey as she smiled.

"You're the badger who called me 'Carrots'," she said as she thought back to the moment she'd been redressed by Mrs. Otterton.

"You don't know me?" asked the badger.

"I know your name's Honey," she said tentatively.

"And nothing else?"

Judy shook her head quizzically.

"So you're not her," said Honey. "Where is she? Where's the other? Did you k-"

"Hey, wait!" exclaimed Clawhauser, "Don't you think we should have this part of the conversation in private?" he asked, sensing that they were delving into things that might seriously disturb the rest of those gathered.

Wilde cleared his throat. "To answer your question: The other's . . . uh . . . under lock and key at the moment."

Honey looked back to the two wolves who'd been taking a good smell of the fox.

They were both blushing profusely—such that she could see a pink tinge beneath Fangmeyer's white fur.

"Yeah . . ." said Wolford, "He still smells exactly like Nick. And a few other things."

"Well, if they'd given us time to shower . . ." murmured Nick, quietly enough only Judy could hear him.

Judy nodded stiffly and turned to look at Nick before giving him just the barest hint of a smile.

The badger nodded curtly at the two wolves, though she maintained a doubtful look in her eyes and turned to Mrs. Hopps. "Would you be so kind as to show us into a private room?"

The older female looked nervous. "Well, I-"

"No way!" shouted Jasper as he started forward. "This is  _our_  house and  _none_  of you are staying alone with our sister!" he said as he stood close in front of Honey.

"Is there a problem?" asked Honey as she turned to fully face the rabbit. Her voice was deceptively sweet, her tone switching effortlessly from one which was frigid and aloof to one which warmed with diplomacy.

"Well, I . . ." he stopped as looked into her eyes, taken aback by the soft fierceness in her gaze. "I don't mean any offence, but I don't like the idea of my sister being alone with a bunch of predators!"

"Oh? And why's that?" she asked softly, an easy smile coming to her face.

"Well I . . ." he started uncomfortably, "I mean, it just doesn't seem like a good idea for a prey to be alone with a predator is all . . . ." His ears tinted pink under her scrutiny.

"I don't know about that," she said casually as she looked him in the face, "you should try it some time. You may find you enjoy it."

The blush that started in his ears now lit his cheeks and was clearly visible beneath his fur. Some of his brothers snickered and slapped him on the back while some other's openly laughed.

"You don't need to worry about your sister," continued Honey reassuringly. "Not when she's with me." She winked and smiled.

Jasper's ears pinned back and nodded carefully. "Uh . . ." was all he could manage.

Bonnie looked between the two of them, somewhat unsure about the situation.

Honey turned back to the older female and smile. "Yes, sorry!" she started, "A private room?"

"There's a larger meeting room just down the hall I can show you," said Bonnie. "We use it for casual business meetings between neighbouring farmers."

Honey nodded agreeably. "Hopps, Nick, Other Nick, Ben, Wolf, Fang, and Finn," she called, "you're with me."

"Just a sec," shouted Wilde, "we're gonna need this trunk!" he continued as both he and Fangmeyer ran to fetch it from his room.

"It won't be necessary!" she called after them.

"Trust me, it is," said Wolford as he watched the two of them disappear into Wilde's room before popping back seconds later, carrying the trunk between the two of them.

"Why would you nee-" She stopped, cutting herself off as realisation bloomed in her mind, a bolt of anger shooting through her.

She sighed and composed herself before turning again to Mrs. Hopps again, her kind demeanour returning in a flash.

"My apologies, Mrs. Hopps; it's just that I was hoping . . . well, you'll probably see soon enough."

-.-.-.-

The door clicked behind Mrs. Hopps as she left the room.

The eight of them had been led down a few winding halls before reaching a somewhat large room. It was open in the middle and barren of any tables except for a long one which was currently situated against a long wall. The room was rectangular in shape and coated with a lush forest green. There were couches, chairs, and cushions to sit on arranged in a circle. On the whole, though, the room was much smaller than either of the common rooms but accommodated the eight of them easily.

Wilde and Fangmeyer had carefully set the trunk in the middle of the floor. The instant the door closed, Honey's face hardened, her voice changing from one of calm to one of quiet yet stern anger.

"Who has the key?" she said firmly.

Wilde came forward somewhat timidly at her demeanour. He felt as though he were a kit who'd just been caught doing something naughty by a teacher. "I do," he said, somewhat unsurely.

"Unlock it, now," she said quietly, though with no small hint of ire.

Wilde came forward and unlocked the trunk, unbelted the straps, and opened it.

Almost immediately, Hopps popped out of the trunk and looked about for a moment before her eyes landed on Honey.

She trembled slightly before speaking softly. "I could use a glass of water."

Honey smirked slightly. "I prefer tea."

"I don't think they have any tea here," said Hopps uncertainly as she looked around the room.

"If they don't, we'll switch to coffee," said Honey, somewhat insistently. "Trust me."

Hopps took a shaky breath. "But I mean . . . are you sure you can trust them?" asked Hopps.

"What do  _you_  think?"

Hopps gave a slight nod. "And . . . and what about  _them_?" she asked wearily as she nodded her head toward Nick and Judy.

"Well," began Honey, "we'll see what's what in a moment.  _For now_ , they don't seem to be against us," she said before grinning. "If they are, calling me is the last mistake they're ever gonna make."

The cryptic insinuation sent a shudder through the room, and Nick reached out and took hold of Judy's paw.

At Honey's reassurance, Hopps nodded, and suddenly it were as though she had become transformed. Her face relaxed; her features softened. She didn't let herself appear frail even as she stood there, though—as still and as obstinate as a pillar.

"What's going on?" asked Clawhauser, slowly, as he stepped forward.

"Well," started Honey, " _she_  could tell you, but you probably wouldn't believe her." She spoke calmly, notes of relief evident in her tone as she saw Hopps was relatively unharmed.

Honey helped Hopps out of the chest and turned to look at the group surrounding the two of them.

"Sgt. Hopps," started the badger, "of the ZPD and scourge of predators everywhere . . . has been working for me."

A stunned moment of silence followed before the frantic wheels began turning in the minds of all those present.

Fangmeyer felt his brain break. "I'm sorry, I thought I heard you say that she was working for  _you_?" Tension was palpable in his voice and body as stern disbelief and denial warred with his calm.

"That's right," replied Honey slowly, trying as hard as she could to keep control of the conversation and the room with herself.

"That can't be right!" growled Wolford. "She . . . she . . . !"

"I know everything you've been put through," she said quickly.

"And did she tell you that she had us de-fucking-clawed, too?!" shouted Fangmeyer. "That she had my. . . ." He broke off, unable to finish the thought.

There was a pregnant pause filled with anger, hatred, and disbelief before Honey continued slowly. "What I understand-"

"How can this be true?" cried Clawhauser.

"She's run in more predators than anyone!" shouted Wolford.

"And did you also notice that her prisoners disappeared?" asked Honey, her voice rising now with a hint of anger at being constantly interrupted.

"Yeah, because she killed them! We saw on the news six months ago that scores of preds had been disappeared while in custody! That's what being 'disappeared' means!" said Wilde. "It's happened before."

Honey let the sentence hang there for a moment. She drew on her stance and her commanding presence, now, where she had allowed it to fall before in the hopes of easing the conversation's tenor and calming tempers naturally. It seemed now, however, that she was going to have to force her way.

"In fact, that's not true," began Honey. "No one has died at her instigation."

There was a rest in the conversation before Hopps spoke up, carefully. "No, Honey. There was  _one_."

Honey turned to look at the bunny as she said this and felt the words hit home. Her seemingly-adamantine composure cracked for a moment as she looked at Hopps.

"Yes," said Honey as she nodded carefully, her bottom lip trembling, " _one_." It was a whisper.

The badger turned back to the group, now, gathering herself before she continued. "No one has died in Hopps' custody—not on purpose, anyway. The fact of the matter is . . . Mr. Big and I have been getting them out."

Another moment of stunned silence followed; the stupefied expressions on the faces of those gathered telling the badger that she almost had them with her. Almost.

The silence ended abruptly as the significance of her words hit their mark.

"What?!" cried the Happy Towners in a clumsy unison when they came back to their senses.

The badger sighed before taking a breath and continuing. "Sgt. Hopps was my contact point—and my only contact point—within the ZPD, and I was hers alone. No one else was to know of her involvement in any way. No one else will be able to verify to you that this was the case, but you need to believe me. Sgt. Hopps has been helping me, and I, in collaboration with Koslov and Mr. Big along with one other agent have been funnelling Happy Towners sentenced to death out of the city."

Finnick's mouth hung agape in disbelief. "And you all knew-"

"No!" said Honey quickly. "No. No one knew of the other's involvement."

Wilde looked puzzled but Clawhauser spoke up.

"So that if any of you were found out," he started, putting the pieces together, "no one would be able to turn on the other!" he finished as he nodded.

"But wouldn't it be a domino effect if one of you were caught? Couldn't someone give someone else away?" asked Judy, pondering the fact that all that would have to happen is for one person to give away the name of his contact at which point the ZPD would go after that contact, then the next. Until at last, they'd all be caught.

Honey turned around to address the rabbit. "I was never in Happy Town or Zootopia to  _be_  caught. I knew my agent's, but all they ever knew of each other were their code names. Judy's was-"

"Carrots," interrupted Judy. "That's what you called me on that street corner."

The badger nodded. "Anyway, none of them knew of each other's involvement. Even Mr. Big and Koslov don't know that they were involved with each other, and no one could let the other know without risking total exposure. The whole premise of the total secrecy was to stem any and all potential leaks we could. The world is too dangerous and enemies are everywhere."

The predators all looked at each other for confirmation but only saw their own doubt reflected in each other's faces.

Wild was shaking his head vehemently. "No, it doesn't make sense. We know she's killed before!"

Fangmeyer was merely looking at Honey, confused. From the moment she had said that no one had died in Hopps' care, the wheels had been turning in his mind. From everything he had seen and witnessed on the day he and his child had been taken in by the ZPD, he'd been led to understand that it was Sgt. Hopps who—either directly or indirectly—had been responsible for his death.

He shook his head in bemusement, totally dumbfounded as he tried to make sense of Honey's words and looked at her with a pained expression in his eyes. "But . . . ."

He trailed off, confusion rattling in his brain.

Honey regarded him for a moment and took a deep breath. "There's something you need to know," she said in a low voice.

Now came the delicate part for the badger. This seemed to be a crucial moment, and what she had to say she had to say very carefully, indeed. Now that Fangmeyer was out of the city and free, now that he was out and on his own, it would be safe for him . . . . Honey clenched her teeth—knowing that what she had to say was bound to incite equal parts elation and anger.

She hummed to herself slowly before gathering her wits. "So, there's something I have to tell you, now, and there's a strong likelihood you're going to hate me for it but I have to say it just so you can understand."

She was still for a moment and pondered her tactic carefully—she  _needed_  them with her.

"Fangmeyer . . . your cub's alive."

He looked at her, stunned and unsure for a moment, a mass of emotions boiling through him, not quite knowing where to settle. "Wh-what . . . ?" He was losing his grip!

His regarded her as though she'd suddenly started talking nonsense.

"It's true," she said coolly, evenly.

He fell to his knees as her words rendered his muscles useless.

"Nine months ago," Honey started quickly, "your wife was taken into custody by the ZPD . . ." Honey trailed off as she became slightly emotional, "and . . . and . . . and was killed."

"I know!" Fangmeyer said in a half-shout, half-growl as tears threatened to fall. "I saw the body! I saw the way they left her! What they . . . they did t-. . . ." He couldn't go on.

"Shortly thereafter," Honey pressed on, "about five months ago, you were taken into custody yourself for getting into a fight with an off-duty policeman. Your collar was malfunctioning and it didn't prevent you from severely injuring him. This happened while your six-year-old cub was in your custody. The ZPD had been planning on declawing you, and they did. They had summarily declared you violent for fighting with an officer-"

"It was a trumped up charge!" he raged.

"-and they decided to kill your son to keep you from passing on your defective, 'non-tame' genes."

"What?!" shouted Nick and Judy in unison at the stunning statement.

Judy was totally unable to contain herself. "There's  _no way_  that that's  _any kind_  of legal!" she shouted. "I didn't see  _anything_  like that on the books!" she continued, stunned and outraged at the hateful notion. Her mind was swimming, feeling an odd buzzing in her brain as she was utterly incapable of processing what she was hearing. It just wasn't connecting! It was unreal and unbelievable!  _Never_  had she ever heard of such vile cruelty. She had known that the powerful forces in Zootopia were treating predators with a criminal level of malevolence, but this was an out-and-out embrace of evil!

"What the hell kind of place is this?!" Nick shouted furiously.

"Hell."

It was Wilde who'd spoken as he eyed Nick intently.

"This can't be happening," muttered Judy, "This can't be real!"

"It  _is_  real!" cried Fangmeyer angrily. "My son is . . . he's . . ." he trailed off as he was overcome with sorrow and disbelief.

"Hey, hey!" said Honey as she came up to the white wolf, her sure stance and steady glance commanding his attention, "It's true. You're son's not dead. He's alive. I'm telling you, he's alive!" she said quietly though insistently.

Judy was in a world of her own as her soul was swamped in a haze of anger, fury, fear, and horror. She couldn't believe it! In the midst of the cloud of darkness that came over her, she felt Nick put an arm around her and draw her close.

For his part, Nick felt a profound wave of anger sweep through him, surging in his chest, and he instinctively growled as the depths of this reality's mercilessness sank in on him. Judy put her own paw on the small of Nick's back and gently rubbed him, trying to comfort him as he did her. She felt his hackles lower under her touch, and the silence that followed was full of a sense of sadness:

Those in the group who believed that the couple were from another universe looked on the two of them somewhat crestfallenly: It seemed to them that the couple were acclimating themselves to the horrors of their reality, and it was sad to see them lose—in a way—their innocence, piece by piece.

In the midst of that silence, Hopps turned toward the couple. "You learn," she said in a low voice, "that a lot of the laws in Zootopia are 'off the books.'"

Fangmeyer looked stunned as the revelation sank in. He couldn't believe it. "Wh-what happened that day?" he asked as he looked at the badger.

Honey turned back to him and spoke slowly. "Hopps was there that day and relieved the men on duty. She called me, and I had a point-man take him into his custody."

"Who?!" shouted Fangmeyer vehemently, "Who has him?!"

"I don't know at the moment," she said, her explanation coming out rapid-fire, "but he was taken by a spy contact of mine who deals with such things. His name is Jack Savage."

Fangmeyer let out a snarl. "Were you going to even tell me?!" he shouted loudly.

He buried his face in his paws as uncontrollable tears of joy started pouring down his cheeks. He didn't understand how he could be so furious, so incredibly elated—relieved!—and so sad all at once!

Wilde looked on for a moment, biting his inner cheeks and chuffing as he struggled to contain his own emotion.

"Hopps actually  _was_  working on getting you out. You remember the sweeps that were being conducted in your area? She'd been planning on using that opportunity to get you to your cub. You weren't caught up in them so you kept missing your chance."

"Could you blame me?!" he snarled. He was  _furious_  at the galling insinuation that his circumstances were in  _any way_  his fault. "What the hell was I supposed to do?! What was I supposed to  _think_?!"

"I know. I know, I'm sorry. I didn't mean . . . all I meant was that we  _were_  trying to get you out. It's just that, considering the nature of what we were dealing with, there was no way we would've been able to let anyone know ahead of time. Judy didn't plan the sweeps—she merely intended to use them as a means of freeing as many animals as she could." Honey kicked herself for her lack of tact and tried her best to calm the wolf. At least she had  _Fangmeyer_  with her. Well . . . probably . . . .

His eyes had been fixated on the ground, but he now looked up to regard Hopps, an uncertain look in flashing in their depths.

The lull in the conversation was abruptly broken, however:

"No, no, no!" exclaimed Wilde, "That doesn't make any sense!" He looked around at the other preds. "She killed Otterton!" He turned quickly to see Hopps as her ears drooped.

Honey sighed. "Yes, she did," she said slowly, regretfully. "That . . . that's something she  _did_  do."

Wilde growled. "That-"

"That's true," said Hopps slowly, cutting off Wilde. She seemed to be trying to hold in some emotion. "It's true," she said again, more quietly now as her mouth went dry. Her voice was quiet with notes of the flat, sarcastic air she had affected whenever she spoke to them earlier but was now tinged with a subdued calm.

"I killed him."

It was silent in the room.

Wilde and the others were suddenly disarmed at this change in her composure.

"Tell'em," said Honey. "They need to know what happened."

Hopps nodded slowly and turned back to the others as she took a deep breath before starting.

"I had just gotten to Zootopia . . ." she said softly. "I had been on the force for maybe three months," she murmured. "I just wanted to make the world a better place."

Hopps paused for a moment and regarded the animals around her for a moment carefully. Nodding to herself, she took a deep breath and told them her story.

-.-.-.-

Officer Hopps closed the door to her police car as she stepped out of the vehicle. She sighed to herself in a mixture of exasperation and relief at the fact that her day was almost over while also recalling some of the more unsavoury parts of her shift. The day of meter Siding had taken its toll on her, and she wasn't looking forward to having to sit down and start writing up reports—the less time spent on remembering the details of the day the better, she thought.

In the three months the rabbit had been working for the ZPD, all she'd done every day, from start to finish was serve tickets and get berated by irate violators who insisted that they were only a couple of minutes over.

She sighed in annoyance at the recollection as she walked up to the station and was curious to see, through the window, more chompers than usual milling about inside.

As she stepped through the doors of the ZPD, she was met with a breath of cool air-conditioning, letting out another sigh as it washed over her—this time, of relief. She saw Cevilla sitting at the reception desk and calmly walked over to her.

"Is Chief Swinton in?" she asked sullenly as she reached the deer.

Cevilla jerked up from the  _Buck's Life_  magazine she was reading and peered around her desk, momentarily bewildered when she saw no one, before suddenly leaning over the station exaggeratedly to look down at the bunny.

"You mean Pricilla?" she asked with a smile on her lips.

Hopps groaned. "No, I mean Chief Swinton. I know her name, and if I'd meant to say it I would have," she said, her tone more than a little miffed at the size joke the doe had made at her expense.

"She's meeting with some new before recruits," said the doe.

"Anyone you know?"

"What makes you think I would know anyone of  _them_?" said the doe, her tone taking on an air of offence.

"Hey," started Hopps, pacifically, "take it easy! I only meant-"

She interrupted herself when she noticed a grey wolf in a navy blue police shirt was walking toward them somewhat submissively.

"Hi! Uh . . ." the wolf began uncertainly as he walked up, "my name's Garou."

Hopps cocked an eyebrow in curiosity. "Garou . . . ?" She was hoping for a last name.

"Oh!" started Garou as he fumbled somewhat clumsily and leant down to offer his paw to the rabbit, "My last name's Leukos. You'll never get it; it's a French and Greek hybrid," he laughed.

Hopps took his paw and shook it carefully, a half-smile appearing in the corner of her mouth. "French-Greek hybrid? How does  _that_  happen?"

The wolf chuckled. "It's what you get when you try to write a Greek name with French spelling: My great-grandfather emigrated from Greece to France." He grinned, and neither the rabbit nor the doe could help but be taken in by his easy manner.

 _'Oh, my,'_  thought Judy as she appraised him,  _'He's positively charming . . . .'_

"So I should call you officer . . . ?" she started.

"Just, pronounce it 'Lukas' if you can't say it," he shrugged.

"I remember you from high school!" said the doe suddenly as Hopps and Garou turned to her in surprise. "I  _thought_  you looked familiar!" She covered her mouth and looked down at Hopps.

The rabbit looked up at her and smiled. "So, you 'wouldn't know any of  _them_?'" she asked laughingly but stopped when she noticed Garou's reaction.

"What was that?" he asked somewhat quizzically, though his smile seemed to have faltered somewhat.

"Oh, it was nothing," said Hopps, smiling. "I was just joking about the new recruits and asked whether she knew any of them."

"And she said she didn't know any of us, huh?" said Garou. Though he was smiling, Hopps could hear a biting edge in his voice.

"Well, to be fair," started Hopps, continuing easily though somewhat wearily, "it's not likely that she  _would_  be friends with a chomper. I think that's what she meant, anyway . . . ." Hopps trailed off as she realised what she'd said.

Garou scowled as he looked at the both of them.

Judy swallowed tensely.

She'd only meant to tease Cevilla but didn't realise how it would sound to Garou. It was clear that she'd stuck her foot in it.

"I may have spoken too soon," murmured the doe hesitantly under Garou's glare. She quickly turned to him. "All I meant is that I don't-"

"Associate yourself with animals like me anymore," he said to her as both she and the bunny watched the coloured light on his collar flick from green to yellow. His brow furrowed as he turned to the doe.

"I didn't mean it like that, Garou! I didn't know you were one of the recruits. You have to admit it can be bad, though!" the doe pressed.

"To be near me? You weren't worried about that before!" he said accusingly.

Hopps found herself surprised at the quick change in his mien but quickly came to a feeling of sympathy for him. It was entirely understandable that he would be touchy about such a subject.

If someone she knew had said something about not knowing her or wanting to dissociate themselves from her—even if they didn't know they were talking about her at first—it would  _really_  piss her off. And calling him a chomper had been the topper, she realised.

It occurred to her that this or something similar had happened to him before. It wouldn't have been surprising to find that lots of friends had abandoned him as relations between prey and predator animals seemed to have worsened in recent years. Hopps could only cringe as the doe dug herself in, deeper.

"That was when we were kids!" she said as she willed him to understand her. "Thing's're different, now!"

The wolf's resentment seemed to grow. The doe flinched at her words and realised that she could have said it better. All she had  _meant_  was that things had become more prejudiced since they were younger, and even the barest of friendships between prey and preds were looked down on.

"Are they?" he asked. "I thought you were my friend! Animals here have been giving me the brush-off left and right, and I could use someone in my corner. The higher-ups're being real jerks about it, too—like I'm just here to fill a quota. All I wanna do is be a cop!"

Cevilla nodded somewhat sadly and debated whether or not to tell him the truth. She'd really enjoyed Garou when she was younger and she didn't feel good about keeping information from him. At last, she sighed and came to a decision. "I don't think that's likely," she said quietly. "You becoming a cop, I mean."

The wolf recoiled as though he'd been slapped. He was positively seething. "What?!"

"I-I don't mean that you  _couldn't_  make a good cop!" she tried quickly, "I'm just saying that the reality is . . . they probably won't let you. I know they reel you in with a bunch of promises, but they're probably gonna start you off in records and then just leave you there. It's what happens to all the preds here. Well, most of them . . ." she trailed off. "Look at Judy! She's been here three months and all they'll let her do is meter maid!"

The conversation was doing  _nothing_  to help his mood, and the doe hated herself for having said anything at all, but specism was likely to rear its ugly head at  _some_  point. On the other paw, she was  _shockingly_  lacking in tact. The conversation had just sort of spiralled out her paws.

Her shoulders slumped. She could tell that she'd spoiled his mood and kicked herself for that. All she could do now was apologise somehow and try to make nice. It was likely that he could use as many friends as he could, here.

"Look, Garou: I'm sorry for what I said," she started. "I mean,  _really_  sorry. Of course you're my friend, and it was mean of me to say that I wouldn't know any cho- any  _preds_." She stressed. She felt ashamed and let out a sigh before trying, gently, to change the subject. "But anyway," she vaguely trailed, "yeah, I didn't mean to get off on the wrong foot. And I really didn't mean to make you angry, I just . . . well, anyway, what did you come here for? I mean, did you need to ask us something?"

She spoke quietly and sincerely, grinning in a bid to ease the tension.

The wolf only looked at her with a mixture of disappointment and anger. "The chief wanted me to come here and ask for help with training in the record's room." His voice was hardened with no small hint of anger.

Cevilla bit her lips as she inwardly cringed.

The tension was palpable.

Hopps was disappointed in herself. She knew from experience what it was to be looked down on in this environment. And now, she felt, she had undermined a potential friendship by joining in a joke making light of his being a predator. There was no excuse for it, she thought, and she could see now that his disappointment his seemingly-congenial personality. Hopps regretted all of it and put a paw out.

"Look, I'm so-"

"It's fine!" he growled sharply. His composure had snapped and understandably so under the barrage of faux pas.

Immediately after he'd spoken, he suddenly jerked in pain as his collar shocked him, its light changing from yellow to red. He grunted but kept his mouth shut, casting his eyes to the ground.

There was an awkward pause where the three of them said nothing before the silence was finally broken.

"I'm sorry," he said stiffly before continuing slowly, measuredly. "My behaviour was rude and vulgar."

It was a practiced response.

It was, quite honestly, the most embarrassing thing the rabbit had seen in her life.

"No!" said the doe insistently. " _We're_  sorry. Aren't we, Judy?"

"That's Officer Hopps," replied the rabbit with a measure of censure, "but yes: I'm sorry," she finished, looking up at the wolf.

The wolf chuffed and looked away. "Whatever. It's not important. Anyway, I just came here because Cheif's putting me down in records and said you'd be able to train me," he said as he turned toward the doe, his eyes still downcast; his voice, stiff and business-like.

"Wouldn't Clawhauser be better at training him?" asked Cevilla, looking at the rabbit.

"Look," said Garou, his voice filled with a restrained exasperation, "if you don't wanna do it-"

"It's not that!" said Cevilla, quickly. "Trust me: it's not that. It's just that he knows the records room like the back of his hand."

"Yeah," Hopps began thoughtfully, "but he started his vacation just yesterday, remember?"

Cevilla nodded and turned to Garou. "Right," she nodded. "So," she began slowly, somewhat awkwardly as though trying to push through the tension, "if you'll just follow me . . . ."

Hopps and Garou bade a stilted farewell, and the rabbit watched as Cevilla slowly led him down the hall to the back stairway. She cocked an eyebrow as she watched the wolf's back as he strutted behind the doe.

She couldn't deny it: He was  _built_. Clearly, an alpha if she'd ever seen one. How demeaning for him to have to wear a collar, she thought. Since arriving in Zootopia, she'd never given it much consideration. Her dream of a Zootopia where anyone could be anything had been meeting a frustrating end with nearly every day that passed. That Zootopian predators had to wear shock collars was something of a surprise—no predator in Bunnyburrow had ever worn one, but perhaps that was only due to the fact that the Burrow had a ratio of predators to prey that outdid even Zootopia's, their greater numbers making them feel more secure.

She watched as the two disappeared through the stairwell and was about to head to her desk to start paperwork on her tickets when she was startled by a sharp voice behind her.

"Disgusting, isn't it?"

Hopps turned and saw Chief Swinton looking over her head and down toward the stairwell door.

"Don't you think?" added the pig.

"I'm sorry?" asked Hopps slowly.

Swinton looked on for a moment before turning to the bunny. "Well, that chomper."

Hopps inwardly winced. "You didn't want to hire him?" she asked carefully.

"They're ruining our society. We just want to live in peace. That's one thing those chompers will never understand about us. Why can't they just be docile?"

"I'm sure grass might wonder the same thing about sheep," said Hopps, a hint of annoyance in her voice.

The pig eyed her carefully and smiled in a way that nearly made the bunny shiver. "Until the plant learns how to bite back, of course. Even docile plants need a bit of poison if they're to survive."

Hopps wasn't entirely sure she liked the insinuation but said nothing.

"If you'll excuse me, Chief" began Hopps, nodding politely, "I have to go finish some reports."

She shuffled off slowly, almost awkwardly, as she started back to her desk. She was more than eager to get away from the conversation and the odd feeling she got from the chief.

From the moment she'd arriven, she'd been treated as an inferior and relegated to second-class status. Everyone she'd met there had looked down his nose at her, both literally and figuratively. Three months of that treatment coupled with the abuse she was met with at the hands of angry parking offenders and doing the same thing day-in and day-out was absolutely infuriating.

As she reached her desk, she couldn't help but contemplate the conversation with Garou. As far as she was concerned, they were both in the same boat when it came to working at the ZPD. Of course, his problems didn't cease once he left these walls, but only increased. On that score, they were very different.

She hummed to herself as she sat down at her station, pulled out some forms from her desk and began filling them out, cross-referencing the information with her ticketing machine as she went along.

Nearly an hour and a half later, she was almost finished with the tedious task of form-filling. Writing them up at this point was a task that she was completing by rote, now—her handwriting was practically unintelligible, though she was far past the point of caring. She sighed, leaned back, and cracked her knuckles as she took a moment.

She turned when she heard a gentle tapping at the entrance to her cubical to see Cevilla and a somewhat shy-looking Garou standing there.

"I showed him just about everything I could down in records, and Bogo said it was fine if we knocked off a few minutes early. I invited Garou out for drinks and I was wondering if you wanted to come."

The rabbit eyed Garou, carefully. "Are you sure you feel like having me around?"

"I wouldn't mind meeting someone new," he smiled.

Hopps nodded. "I have to finish my paperwork but we can go afterward," she said.

Cevilla and Garou looked at each other carefully.

"Did you guys already punch out or something?" asked the rabbit.

"Yeah" began the deer, "we kinda just meant 'if you were ready.'"

"Ah! Yeah, no, it's fine. You guys go on ahead and I'll catch up with you once I'm through here. The usual spot?" she asked.

"Yeah," said the doe, "we'll see you there!" she finished. And the two went off together. The rabbit sighed and turned back to her desk and got back to work.

Some time later, she had finally finished and gave a long stretch before sitting forward and pulling out her phone. It was seven thirty-five and scowled as it had taken her longer to finish than she had hoped.

She logged into her personal account. It had taken them nearly a month to set up her account and get her in the system. She knew that the animals responsible for setting up her stuff had been dragging their heels on the issue—otherwise there was no reason  _not_  to have her in the system to start with. Just one more thing that bothered her about the individuals working here: There was no professionalism at all. Everyone seemed to have their own personal vendetta against someone else—usually prey against predators. And what frustrated her most were the obvious office politics that being bandied about.

Chief Swinton was a perfect example of that: Here was a pig whose main job should be to ensure that the police force be run ethically—and yet she couldn't help but be bothered by the obvious cruelty with which she had been treating perps who were preds. She had no idea what was going on, but it was worrying to her that the more time she spent on the force, the more she seemed to be a witness to something that  _just_  crossed the line.

Recently, they had hired a gopher who was passed off as some sort of doctor. Hopps hadn't even been aware of the fact that they had an infirmary, and when she asked about it, she was met with cagey answers that didn't leave her feeling very well. Coal, one of the officers who had started after her, seemed to treat her with out and out hostility when she brought up the subject in his presence. One thing was for certain—there was a definite in-group and out-group among even the prey animals working here, and it was clear where she stood. It was also clear, and not a little troubling, that the reason as to  _why_  she was in the out-group, she was relatively certain, had to do with her by-the-book mentality.

She hadn't been raised that way. Her older brothers and sisters seemed so concerned with matters of duty, honour, loyalty, and morality that it seemed impossible for her to turn a blind eye to the undercurrents of corruption she could sense here.

She found out not too long ago that her parents had started a working relationship with Gideon Grey which was good to hear considering she had heard so much of the opposite from her father when first leaving for Zootopia. While her parents had been developing that partnership with Gideon in such a short space of time, she, on the other paw, had been facing something quite different—exposure to the rampant dislike of chompers not only in the police force but all throughout the city had rattled her. She had initially become a willing partner in it as far as her own internalised prejudices had let her.

She had had to confront that latent side of herself once when she had seen some officers take down a ferret named Duke Weaselton. She didn't witness the altercation but had heard that the he'd sustained some major injuries and had to be taken to hospital. At the time, she hadn't paid much attention as she just assumed that the mammal must've done something. In point of fact, she later learned, he had indeed been attempting to smuggle something into the city, though the details of the satchel he'd been carrying had been withheld from public reports. Swinton had kept a tight seal on those records and would allow no one to access them save those involved.

What had started to sway her opinion somewhat was when she heard Coal and Rhinowitz joking about the incident later. She was shocked to hear that Weaselton's injuries had been caused by the rhino!

Normal police procedure usually called for mammals of relatively equal strength be used to apprehend a perp of equal size and measure. It was for this reason that Hopps and Rhinowitz were forbidden from entering and apprehending anyone in Little Rodentia—for that purpose you would call in Officer Brie or any one of a number great mouse detectives.

What little information she had been able to glean had set off a chain reaction in her mind, and the wheels had started turning. She overheard, for example, that nearly every bone in the weasel's body had been damaged in some way or other.

The poor creature must have been in  _excruciating_  pain!

In the days following, her sharp hearing picked up more than she ever wanted to know, and she learned that her partners were untrustworthy.

She was also shocked to see how much she had really turned a blind eye to: Now she was glancing up from her work maybe a second or third time whenever a predator was brought in—always muzzled. She started eyeing the number of times a perp would get some extra treatment at the hands of the officers there and saw that it far exceeded what she would have thought any creature deserved.

She noticed harsher treatment and sentences for offences which should normally have carried a lighter offence.

And Hopps realised at this point that there was something she didn't like about herself, because she noticed that nine times out of ten, a part of her felt that the perps deserved it. She didn't like that she felt safer when she saw before after pred being marched in for petty crimes. She didn't like that she got a sickening pleasure from seeing a resistant before get beaten or shocked. And she didn't like that a part of her soul was allowing her to indulge more and more in the awful enjoyment she was getting out of what amounted to a blood sport.

She had every once in a while turned her gaze to Coal—such a docile-seeming creature when he first joined—change from an idealistic young koala straight from the academy to being a mean, vicious, cruel animal who dipped into schadenfreude to the point where he was scarcely the same animal Hopps had met only a month after she joined the force. And one day as she was looking at him, it struck her—She was looking at a future version of herself. This is the animal that she was going to become if she allowed herself to continue on the path that she was on, and if she didn't want to become him, she was going to have to make more of an effort to change herself.

Thus, she had been reminding herself of her personal mantra nearly every day and had been trying as best she could to apply it to every facet of her life.

Some days were better than others, and when she called one of her more religiously-minded sisters one day to voice her concerns, her sister seemed in agreement with her and applauded her efforts to do better. Hopps would never forget, though, the advice her sister had given her before hanging up.

"Judy, I just want you to be careful. Remember the old saying: 'If you look in the face of evil, evil's gonna look right back at you.'"

Judy punched out before logging off her computer and grabbing the finished reports. She headed down to the records room and delivered them to the attendant there before heading back to her station, grabbing her stuff, and heading for the door.

The whole while, her mind had been turning with thoughts of Garou, and she wondered how best to make up with him.

 _'Being myself, for starters,'_  she thought as she reached her police car.  _'Not being a jerk. Not letting other people change me . . . .'_

The list went on.

She started the car and headed off. As she drove out of the parking lot she briefly considered the possibility of heading back to her apartment for a quick change—she hated feeling grimy at the end of the day—before deciding to just go as she was. She was certain that Garou and Cevilla were probably still in their uniforms.

She sighed as she drove, focusing on the road and trying to keep her mind off the more stressful parts of the day and relax from the drudgery of the monotonous reports she'd had to write.

She switched on her police scanner for the hell of it to listen in on any nearby calls that were being taken in the downtown area. Not that there was much that she could do about what she heard, anyway.

God, she was  _so_  pathetic. Here she was: having to listen in secretly to conversations over the radio. To anyone on the outside, it really  _would_  look as though she were just pretending to be a cop, sitting comfortably while living vicariously through the actions of her comrades. It was infuriating that Percy Reinhardt—a meerkat and one of the few friends at the station her size—had had to fix her scanner so that she'd be able to hear dispatches in her precinct. She'd  _really_  been desperate when she had him do that for her. She just wanted to feel important—like she mattered and was making a difference. Instead, animals looked through her and over her—no one seeing her. She was as invisible as the chompers who worked at the station—relegated to menial tasks, reprimanded harshly for the least infractions, and asked in so many silent and small ways to constantly prove herself.

The meerkat had done that for her because of a sense they both had that they belonged together—at least, that they were in this mess together.

Hopps sighed to herself as she listened to the useless crackle and chatter of the scanner and focused on the road ahead. She'd gone about three blocks and had just stopped at a red light when the radio crackled and a voice came in over the scanner.

"Officer Higgins to dispatch. Officer Higgins to dispatch, can you hear me?

"10-2, this is dispatch to Officer Higgins."

"Dispatch, 10-108 near Pine Drive and Rhodes."

"10-4. You said a 10-108?"

"Affirmative. Officer down and in danger. And a 10-52."

"10-108? Are you currently in danger?"

"I'm also calling in a 10-91v. The subject ran off."

"What's going on?"

"My partner an' m-"

"Are you in danger?"

"My partner an' me were responding to a disturbance and ended up getting attacked."

"Are there any civilians near you?"

"Negative. The a-

"The area's clear?"

"10-4. The area is clear."

After a brief pause.

"This is dispatch, officers are en route."

There was another pause before Hopps heard the voice come over the radio again.

"This is dispatch to all officers near Pine Drive and Rhodes. We have a 10-91v in the area. There's an officer down."

The rabbit gripped the steering wheel for a moment as there was a brief silence before a third officer joined in.

"10-2, this is Officer Rhinowitz," came his clear voice over the radio, "what's the call?"

There was a static click before dispatch responded. "Officers reported a 10-91v."

"A vicious animal? What species?"

"Unknown. The officer's currently administering first aid and called for a bus."

She took a deep breath and held it for a moment as she deliberated whether or not to butt in. She knew she could get into serious trouble for it. There was a silence just before she flipped on her lights and sirens and made a u-turn as she headed back to Rhodes Street.

"Officer is advised to use caution," came dispatcher's voice again. "That means do not engage the subject."

Hopps bit her lip as she recalled the last time someone had told her that.

_"I forbid you, Hopps! The last thing we need in the news is the PR disaster your death would cause! 'Cute Bunny Meter Maid Splattered All Over Pavement in Residential Neighbourhood!'" Deputy Bogo boomed._

_Hopps sighed. "I don't think the papers would use such a long title."_

_"You're not to engage anyone and that's an order!" Bogo insisted._

Even now, Deputy Bogo's voice still rang in her mind; her insistence on doing more had come to nothing in spite of her lobbying for more responsibility.

She took a deep breath as she considered her options. She didn't want to get in trouble but it sounded like they needed all the help they could get. She argued with herself, weighing the pros and cons before coming to a decision.

 _'You assist the officer and take over first aid if you can manage to do even that much without being a total fuck up,'_  she thought to herself derisively.

She sped quickly, having just passed by Rhodes, herself. She was near enough that it was a straight shot about a minute away from where she was.

As she pulled up to the intersection, she saw a police car, its lights flashing but siren off. She could see two figures on the sidewalk—one kneeling over the other.

She pulled up and parked along the curb, got out of the car, and sped to the two creatures in front of her.

"Hey!" she called out carefully as she came nearer, "How is he?" she asked. She was near enough now that she could make out the animals—a zebra was knelt down over a stag. His police shirt was off and he was pressing it into the stag's neck. Blood was covering the sidewalk and she could see that the equid was holding the garment to the deer's neck, firmly, to stem what was clearly a grave injury.

The zebra turned and furrowed his brow when he saw the rabbit.

"Hopps?" he asked as she dashed up.

"Yeah. Is everything alright? What can I do to help?" she fired quickly.

"How did you know we were here?" said the zebra, unable to help but wonder why a meter maid had responded to his call.

"I didn't. I saw your lights as I was passing by," she lied. "Thought you might need some assistance. What happened?"

The zebra paused for a moment and silently regarded her—not quite buying her story—before taking a careful look back down at his partner. The stag's breathing was ragged and he seemed to be on the edge of consciousness.

"Me an' Sean were out on patrol when we got a call for a 10-91v," he said. Hopps followed the zebra's gaze as he focused on his partner. Her eyes turned and looked at the shirt he was applying to the stag. A nametag shone in the dark as it reflected the light from streetlamp emitting a dirty orange cast on as it illuminated the scene. It proudly displayed the name, Higgins. The tag and the name on it were smeared with gouts of blood, and Hopps couldn't help but shiver.

It was ghastly!

She took a deep breath and tried to collect her thoughts as she answered. "A vicious animal attack?"

He said nothing.

"Higgins?" she prompted when he didn't answer.

He nodded distractedly. "Yeah. A vicious animal. An otter. He was quick," said Higgins, "but we managed to pursue him on foot before we lost him." He looked up from the stag and nodded down the street in the direction they'd gone. "Sean decided to go back to the car to radio for backup. I went on to look for it. Next thing I know, I hear Sean screaming and I ran back here to see the fucker tearing out 'is throat."

Hopps shivered and looked down at the stag but looked up again as she heard sirens approaching and watched as a large patrol car pull up behind hers.

Rhinowitz came out of his vehicle and quickly jogged over to them.

"What happened?" he asked as he slowed.

Hopps looked up the rhino, craning her neck to see him. "Officer Higgins said-"

"I don't remember talking to you, Hopps!" he boomed. He looked to the zebra now. "Sorry about that. What happened?"

Higgins relayed his story in quick detail, and Hopps noted to her relief that she could hear ambulance sirens in the distance. Hopps noted curiously, however, the rhino seemed to show no signs of surprise or concern about what was happening—not even when he was told that the species they were looking for was an otter. Rhinowitz couldn't seem to care less, and Hopps exchanged a bemused look with the zebra for a moment as the stripped animal finished speaking before looking back to the large mammal.

There was a pause in the conversation before the rhino turned to her. "Hopps, I don't know how you knew that there was something going down, here, but it's good that you're here all the same." His tone was conciliatory, but she could hear more than an edge of resentment in it. "You can take over first aid while Sean and I go to investigate the area."

"I'm not leaving him," said the zebra firmly as he kept the pressure on his neck.

"There's a savage on the loose and you're the only officer who can come."

Hopps came forward and reached for the makeshift bandage. "Please, let me take o-"

"No!" shouted the officer firmly. His outburst caused Hopps to recoil and nearly trip over herself.

"Do it, Higgins," said the rhino. "I need back up."

"Use her," said Higgins. "I'm not leaving him."

"Man, if you're doing this because you blame yourself-"

"I don't!"

"Then come with me and we'll find the bastard who did this to him."

"I'm not leaving him. He's my partner," he said firmly.

The rhino regarded the zebra pityingly before turning to Hopps with a sickening grin.

"Well Hopps," he started as he gave her a know-it-all tone, "You always wanted to be a real cop—now we get to see what you got. . . ."

Hopps only stared at him. "What?" she asked incredulously.

"You're gonna help me catch that savage and you're gonna do it or I tell Chief Swinton that you answered a call against protocol. You see what the fucker did to Sean—there's no way that I'm chasing after that thing on my own."

The large mammal smirked to himself as he looked down at the bunny. He was certain—or at least partially so—that she would decline out of fear. He didn't know what it was about her, but there was something in her that he didn't like. Maybe it was the way she refused to go along with the crowd, or the look she gave him and the other officers when they were teaching some of the other predators a lesson to remember—whatever her motivations, he knew that he didn't like them. This might be a chance to scare her off. Or get her hurt. Either way, he knew that one way or another, she didn't have the guts for the job—at least, not the job Swinton was asking for.

He could see the bunny warring with herself. She could recognise his trap—if she went with him, he could get her into a huge amount of trouble for disregarding protocol. If she stayed behind, everyone on the force would regard her as a coward. Either way, she'd be facing disciplinary action simply by how he'd spin her role in this situation.

She finally seemed to come to a conclusion—if she were going to face disciplinary action either way, let it be for something worthwhile.

She looked up at the rhino and said, "Let's do it."

The rhino grinned and reached into his pocket and pulled out a smallish tranq gun—smaller than any she'd seen. It was odd, she thought as she looked at the gun. He handed it to her and she gently took it from him.

"You're a cop now, Hopps. You're gonna need one of these."

"What kind of a tranq gun is this?" she asked as she looked up at the rhino incredulously.

"It's one made specially for taking down preds."

Her curiosity peaked even more. "So . . . what kind is it?"

"Heh. Don' worry about it, Tender Foot. We got a savage to hunt down."

Hopps looked down at the bleeding stag and couldn't help but scrunch her nose at his deliberate word choice.

She holstered the weapon and started with the rhino down the sidewalk.

"Where'd you see it go last?" called the rhino to the zebra.

"Just down that alley!" he shouted as he motioned diagonally across from them to an alley situated between two tenement buildings.

"Alright, Hopps, you remember your training from the academy?"

Hopps nodded slowly. "I only got out three months ago, so yes."

"Well, this ain' like nothin' they teach you at the academy. You never faced a feral before? They're fuckin' savages. You tranq'em and ask question later. Understood? The important thing is getting them under control."

Hopps nodded carefully. "Alright, Meter Maid, you take the alley. I'll circle around and take the back."

Hopps could feel a well of fear rising in her chest as she looked down the dark way.

She turned back as she could hear the sound of ambulance sirens heading toward them down the way and felt a surge of relief on behalf of the fallen officer.

She turned back to Rhinowitz only to see that he was gone and was just heading around the corner to reach the other side of the tenement block.

In reality, thought Hopps, his job was more dangerous as the savage had, in all likelihood, left the alley and might be loose somewhere else in the vicinity.

She took a deep breath and shored up her courage before heading for the alley.

The instant she reached the opening, she realised just how bad an idea this was. Her eyesight was nowhere near as good in the darkness, and she was certain that the rhino's was even worse.

Her ears twitched as she strained to pick up any sound she could. She withdrew her weapon, leaving the safety on, as she started down the darkened tribute.

Her nose twitched at the unpleasant smells, the stench of waste and refuse disturbing her, nearly causing her to gag.

When she was about ten feet into the alley, she lost her eyesight completely. All she could see were floating shadows near the edges of her periphery that were either boxes or trash bins that were waiting for the morning pick up. She nearly tripped on some bottles that were lying on the ground which clinked loudly in the darkness as they shattered the silence around her.

Judy took another deep breath and headed further into the dark, her eyesight, at last, reaching a point where she could no longer make out even the barest of shadows around her.

"Rhinowitz!" she called timidly, her voice echoing off the walls. "Rhinowitz!" she called, still more loudly as she hoped and prayed for a response from the depths of the abyss.

There was no answer as she continued down the alley. The only thing she could hear were her footfalls as she went further and further still.

This was stupid! She had thought that the lights from the overhead apartments would be enough to light her way in the darkness but they clearly weren't. She felt the prickling of the hairs on the back of her neck as she felt a foreboding sense of danger creep over her.

She needed to get back to her car, she felt. The darkness of the alley was pressing in on her in a way she couldn't rationally describe. An odd, primal terror seemed to take hold of her and her heart began to beat faster as a crippling anxiety took hold of her.

Behind her, she could hear the sirens cease and the paramedics call to each other as they stabilised the deer.

She needed them now. She needed to get back to the light! She needed to get away from the danger and come back with a stronger light that banished the shadows.

She turned around to face and took a few steps forward before she stopped suddenly, standing stock still at what she saw before her.

Backlit by the lights from the street, she could only make out a figure in silhouette. She stifled a cry of surprised as she beheld it. It form was amorphous and silent and it stood there, facing her. She took a step back, feeling her stomach clench in fear as the unknown figure stood there, regarding her for what felt like an eternity.

Attempting to gather her wits and banish her fear, she tentatively called out. "Hello? Are you alright, Sir? Or Ma'am?"

There was a dark silence that followed for a moment before Hopps felt her hackles rise even more as the creature let out a low growl and then snarl.

Fear overtook her as she clicked the safety off and trained it on the figure before her.

It growled loudly again and crouched down low as though getting ready to pounce! Suddenly, a broken street light from above her flicked on, and for a brief flash as it went off again, she saw the bloody fangs and terrifying, gaping maw of a creature she couldn't recognise!

She screamed and fell backwards as the creature seemed to roar and jumped at her, its claws and fangs outstretched.

Instinctively she fired a shot.

Blood spattered in the air, shimmering as the streetlight illuminated individual beads from behind.

The creature howled and she fired twice more into its chest before landing on her, another scream tearing from her throat as it landed on her and seemed immediately to go unconscious.

Hopps scrambled away, shoving the thing off as crimson pools began to form, coating the ground liberally.

She could only look at the figure on the ground before her, her trembling hand dropping the weapon. She had no idea what she had just done.

She turned her gaze to the ground beside her to regard the weapon.

 _'What the hell **is**  that thing?'_ she wondered. Never had she seen a dart gun do so much damage to a creature.

Her shock was due in no small part to the fact that she hadn't been expecting the blood.

She looked back over at the fallen figure and a chill swept over her as she heard its ragged breathing. She closed her eyes and tried to cover hear ears . . . and tried to pretend it was just her imagination when she heard its breathing cease.

Hopps jumped suddenly when a loud voice shouted her name.

"Hopps! Are you alright?!"

It was Rhinowitz. She wanted to answer, wanted to call back but found she'd been stricken dumb. She couldn't speak. Her thoughts were a jumble of senseless words and images as the terror, fear, horror, and regret all swoll within her.

She sat there silently as Rhinowitz and some other officers who'd arriven on the scene came to her assistance and got her up. She felt herself being carried to the ambulance where she was looked over by the paramedics.

She had no idea what anybody was saying to her or about her. The sounds, the looks, the stares all passed right through her.

She looked over as they carried the creature she'd shot out of the alleyway and was shocked.

He really had been an otter. She looked at him and felt a pang of pity, regret, and guilt shoot through her heart.

He had the face of an angel and could have been asleep for all she knew.

Instantly her emotional barriers broke.

She made no outward display save for the tears that suddenly started pouring down her face. Her countenance was stoic.

Rhinowitz noticed her and came over to her.

"It was a good shooting, Hopps. It would have killed you if you hadn't killed it."

"That gun wasn't a tranq gun," she said quietly as her tears continued to fall.

Rhinowitz laughed. "Naw, it wasn't. It was only for use on  _them_."

Hopps nodded. "You mean preds."

"I mean savage fucks like him," he continued.

Hopps said nothing but continued to stare off into the darkness, saying nothing as she continued to look away as other officers that had now arriven on the scene asked the rhino for details. They beamed and smiled as he recounted the tale of Hopps' bravery in spite of being such a small creature.

They surrounded her as their voices became a jumble around her, the conversation becoming a muddled pond of meaningless chatter.

She looked up into their faces and noticed to an officer that they were all looking over her to each other.

And there she was, in the middle of the story of her life, and she was invisible.

All she could hear in her mind as she looked at the scene before her—its incredible contrasts between light and shade and the cacophony of voices that filled the air—was her sister's voice and her grave warning:

_'If you look in the face of evil, evil's gonna look right back at you.'_

-.-.-.-

A pall of quiet fell over the tiny room as Hopps paused.

"Poor Otterton," said someone.

There was nothing more that could be said.


	9. Tribunal

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Judy faces questioning from the Happy Towners. Uncertain about her future with them, she continues her story and explains the confusion of her past.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Special Acknowledgement: First and foremost I would like to thank Soildier for his help in preparing this chapter!
> 
> Author's Note: I would like to thank all of my reviewers for your encouragement and your critiques! I can't thank you enough nor can I show you enough appreciation. Updates are still coming slowly, as you might tell. But they're still coming. I just sincerely hope I don't lose your interest, though.
> 
> Univeristy is still going well, though as time moves along, it's going to be taking up more and more of my time.
> 
> Let me know if you have any questions I could answer or if there's anything I've left unclear that I need clarify.
> 
> Everyone who has faved and followed me and/or my story, I would love to give you all a big thanks of appreciation of your support. You all have done so much to encourage me, and I can't tell you how grateful I am.
> 
> General Statement: As I stated before, I welcome any and all criticism pertaining to the story. If I miss a bit of grammar here or there let me know so I can fix it. If there's something that strikes you a mistake or an error let me know so that I can fix that, too; and yes, I do fix mistakes that are pointed out to me. Speaking from personal experience, nothing can take me out of a story more than a misspelt word or a grammatical mistake—especially if they're too common. Any other comments, questions, or concerns? Feel free to PM me.
> 
> Disclaimer: This is a work of fanfiction and has no claim whatsoever on the characters of Nick Wilde and Judy Hopps who are the sole property of The Walt Disney Company. In no way have I sought money, monetary value, nor profit of any kind for the writing of this story.

* * *

  
  
The room was silent in the wake of her story.

The rabbit eyed the figures around the room who had by now all taken seats, herself having taken a place next to Honey.

The resulting formation had her feeling not-a-little intimidated as the Happy Towners (with the body doubles of herself and Mr. Wilde) sat across from her in a semi-circle, reminding her of a tribunal. She shuddered at the unpleasant memories it raised as she faced them, now.

They regarded her critically, each of them feeling a profound sense sadness and loss—not for her sake so much as for Otterton's, who'd been such a gentle soul; all of them could remember with a heartbreaking clearly what the feeling was like the next day when they heard the awful news.

The silence that fell over them was impenetrable. Or nearly so.

She had just described not only the death of Otterton but the death of her idealism and her innocence.

In her version of the events that led to his death, she'd also hoped to tell the story of how she'd come to realise the truth—how she'd come to realise something that she hadn't wanted to acknowledge before she became—in her eyes—a murderer and wouldn't have been able to till the moment she shot Otterton:

It hadn't been till then that she had seen the lengths to which the Zootopian elites were willing to go to maintain their power over the city; it hadn't been till then that she had understood the full depths of their hatred for predators.

That was the truth.

It should have been obvious to her from the beginning. But even at that point, the truth had been difficult to see. While the death of the Otterton had started the ball rolling, it was still some time before she was able to see things for what they were.

For all the strength of will she had, in the face of such insurmountable abuse and hatred, she had gradually been edging toward their way of thinking and had been growing very steadily toward accepting their abuses. That was obvious to her, now. Looking back on it, she could see the seeds of it creeping up on her somewhat younger self; even then, after so short a time on the force. The killing of Otterton and its fallout had shocked her out of her growing complacency, and Hopps hoped that they would see that. She hoped that they would understand it.

Of course, not everyone understood what she was trying to say, nor saw it in the most flattering of terms . . .

"So . . ." started Finnick slowly, "you sayin' the reason you been such a cold bitch this whole time is 'cause you killed Otterton?"

Everyone broke into laughter instantly as the sombre mood shattered. Some doubled over as they shook and struggled for breath; awkwardness and sobriety gratefully banished in an instant. Their amusement wasn't caused so much by what the fennec had actually said but by the release of the strict tension that had been mounting in the room since bombshell after bombshell was being dropped on them.

Wilde clapped Finnick on the back and put his face in his paws as his chuckles subsided before looking down at his companion gratefully as the laughter in the room died down.

Finnick looked back, quirking a smile before dropping it and sighing, the noise in the room having quieted, as his mind turned to more serious matters. He faced Hopps again as he worded his next question. "But seriously," he started earnestly, "you been a dog to everyone—even to  _us_. If you was really tryna' help us out, why be a bitch t' everyone? I mean, the way Garou put it when we was talkin' earlier, you had 'is wife fuckin' cryin'!"

Hopps nodded carefully. The question was a sharp one, and a similar one had been on everyone's mind. Gathering her thoughts for a moment, she finally made to answer as best she could.

"What do you know about the ZPD and City Hall's spy network?" she began, deciding to open with a question.

Hopps looked around the room and saw no one really willing to answer, looking unsure.

"Well, it's deep," she said carefully. "Multiple-layers deep." She took a breath. "As in, spies are leading double lives," she said.

The group looked around at each other dubiously. Was she for real? "Spies were leading double lives"? That's how spies worked! She might as well have said grass was green.

"Alright," began Finnick slowly as he looked back at her, "so, spies lead double lives. We already knew  _that_." He chuckled slightly.

 _'Right, okay, yeah,'_  thought Hopps to herself as she put her paw on her forehead, trying to think,  _'walked right into that one.'_

And that's why this was so hard, she thought. It was difficult to describe the profundity of the nature of spying at the ZPD and City Hall.

"But what I mean is," said Hopps carefully as she tried again, "if Honey, all of a sudden, turned out to be not who she said she was and was really working for the ZPD this whole time.  _That's_  the level of spying I'm talking about."

They all looked at her confused.

"Uh . . ." began Wilde, "there's no way the City Hall wo-"

" _Yes,_  they  _would_!" she stressed. "I've seen it with my own eyes! Animals are trained to spy for City Hall—I  _know_  this for a fact—and then they go right back to being regular members of the city. They usually recruit civilians. Some of 'em're like undercover cops with all the training plus a crap ton of spy training, too."

Wilde opened his mouth as light bulb suddenly went off in his head. "Oh! Wait, so . . . you're saying," he started as he tried to collect his thoughts, "that . . . that what? That  _Cevilla_  could be a double agent? And that that's why you were putting up a front with her?!" he asked in a low voice. He couldn't believe what she was saying, and he eyed her quizzically.

Hopps nodded vehemently. "Yes! Exactly!" she said, somewhat elatedly. She was relieved to be understood even though she felt no one believed her. "Not only that," she continued ardently, "but  _Garou_  could be one, too. Or they could be working together."

Wilde scoffed. "There's no way-"

"There  _is_  a way!" she said sternly.

Wilde's temper flared angrily, and he made to retort but was cut off when Honey raised her paw at that moment, interrupting the flow of the argument, and the others all looked at her as she spoke.

"I just needed to say for the record that Garou and Cevilla are  _not_  spies. I vetted them the second I found out that they were in play. Judy's speaking hypothetically. Probably." She sounded almost bored as she said this. Of course she was bored—she knew this all already.

Hopps nodded gratefully. "Yeah, I meant  _hypothetically_." She breathed before looking around to address the group.

"The point is," she continued, "if I don't know who to trust, I have to wear my persona in front of everyone. Not only that: there are bugs and surveillance cameras all over the ZPD."

"But why weren't Cevilla and Garou in any trouble?" asked Clawhauser. "They were illegally married."

"They weren't high enough up on the totem pole for anybody to notice. It wasn't  _too_  hard for me to find out they got married at some point. Anyone else who cared probably could have, too. But that  _might_  have been coming to an end. Unless they were spies."

"What do you mean 'it  _might_  have been coming to an end'?" asked the cheetah.

"Well," she started, "as I said, I knew about their marriage, but I had to do a  _bit_  of digging for it. Not a lot, but it was under just enough red tape and paperwork that no one would have seen it unless they were looking for it, so they were probably safe on that front as long as they didn't make waves. What would have tripped them up is . . . well, did Garou tell you how I threatened Cevilla?"

Clawhauser nodded. "Yeah, he did. He said you threatened to expose their marriage."

"Yeah, well, the thing is, things were a little more complicated. And I had a bit of a double reason for revealing that I knew about their relationship. Is that  _all_  Garou told you?  _Just_  that I threatened to expose their marriage?" she asked.

When he nodded, she continued. "I caught them having sex in the supply closet."

Roars of surprise and laughter again filled the room. They collected themselves quickly, however, and stifled themselves as they all wanted to hear her, now.

"The thing is," she said as her own laughter subsided and her grave mien returned, "if they  _did_  have sex in there, they were caught with or without me: The supply closet is monitored and bugged. I saw them set up the system there (and I know that the whole ZPD is bugged and monitored, anyway); if they'd actually done anything in there," she said, referring back to Garou and Cevilla, "(which, I guess they  _did_ ), they would have been caught."

"Yeah," said Wolford as he joined the discussion, "but if they were working for City Hall, there's no way they were fucking, 'cause then they'd be just as anti-predator and prey relations too, right?" he asked as he looked around at the group. "So," he started as he turned back to Hopps, "then why didn't that tip you off?"

"You mean," she began slowly, "why didn't the fact that they were  _actually_  having sex indicate that they weren't spies?" She raised an eyebrow to accentuate the question.

"Yeah," he replied as he nodded carefully.

Judy nodded back in understanding. "Because I only  _heard_  them: I didn't actually  _see_  them having sex," she said. "They might've just been making the noises to fake me out—it's what they would've done if they were spies, and there was no way for me to know—I don't have access to those cameras: only animals who work for the spy network do."

"But still, why were you so awful with her? And Garou, too!" asked Clawhauser. He felt a special kinship with Garou after having worked with him for so long, though Cevilla had always feigned disinterest and hostility toward him. Yesterday was the only day she'd shown him kindness, and he realised that it must have come down to the fact that there was no use in pretending that she hated prey animals now. At least, not in front of him. Of course, she'd gone right back to "hating" him the instant they were back inside the ZPD . . . .

Suddenly, it clicked in his mind!

Of  _course_  Hopps would've had to have been cruel with everyone—in the same way that Cevilla'd had no idea whom she could trust, neither had Hopps! And in the same way that Cevilla'd had to go right back to feigning hostility the instant they were back inside the ZPD, Hopps would've had to put up her mask  _constantly_.

With the mind flower blooming in his head, the cheetah realised that if the whole ZPD were bugged and surveiled, there was no way to know who might be listening into what and where.

Realisation dawned on his face as he looked at the bunny. The tracking collars that had been on the verge of being widely implemented were a very small part of a larger plot to keep all the preds in the city under strict observation.

He furrowed his brow and looked at the bunny and nodded in understanding. She never knew  _who_  might be a double agent—never knew  _who_  might be listening in.

Her treatment of Cevilla and all the other preds was based on her inability to trust anyone. She couldn't trust that Cevilla weren't a deep-cover spy, couldn't trust that someone who  _were_  a spy was listening in, couldn't trust that the area  _in_  which she was speaking weren't bugged. Hell, she probably couldn't even trust that her own  _apartment_  weren't bugged. And yet, in the face of it all, she had decided to work for Honey.

"The thing is," began Hopps, "I didn't know whose side they were on before I talked to Honey. It was just strange that two animals would do  _anything_  in public the way they were. They even kissed in front of my workstation. It made me think that they  _wanted_  me to see them. Now that I know they're civilians, though, I get that they were just being stupid. Like I was.  _I_  never would have believed I was being spied on, either; so, that side of it I can understand—but kissing in front of my desk? So it just made sense to me: if they were spies, the reason was simple—their motivation would have been to set a trap and figure out if I was secretly sympathetic."

"So," interjected Fangmeyer who'd remained quiet for the duration, "you couldn't trust anybody or any _place_? And that's why you did all that illegal shit to us?"

 _'Well,'_  thought Hopps to herself,  _'technically, it wasn't illegal . . . .'_  She didn't dare say it, though. She didn't wanna die.

Clawhauser looked over at Fangmeyer and answered for her. "Yeah, she had to, because she was undercover. When some officers are undercover they might have to do something illegal to not get caught. Like, sometimes new members of a cartel'll have to take drugs to be initiated, and then do more illegal things in order to stay undercover and not be recognised." He looked over at Hopps but was still talking to Fangmeyer. "They're tracking all of us, and the new tracking collars were gonna be part of it. Everywhere she went was bugged, Cevilla or Garou may have been under deep cover, working for City Hall, and everywhere she went she had to pretend to be someone she wasn't. And since everywhere was bugged, anyway, even if Cevilla  _weren't_  a spy, she would have had to wear her cover."

Hopps nodded gratefully. She finally felt like she was making headway!

"Exactly!" she said. "And also, if Garou and Cevilla were spies, it would explain why they were being affectionate in public—spies can get away with a lot in order to stay undercover. Otherwise, interspecies relationships are  _very_  illegal and  _very_  punishable by death."

She paused and looked around the room at the shocked faces. " _That's_  something that's 'off the books,' too," she sighed. "But yeah, it's rare anybody knows they're being watched. Most animals don't even know it's going on, at all. There was no way for either of them to've known that they'd been seen, and . . ." Hopps paused and let out a hopeless sigh, "their capture would have come as a total surprise to them. City Hall likes for that kind of stuff to feel like a sucker punch," she said bitterly as she ran a paw over her face. "Their deaths would have been  _excruciating_."

Everyone remained silent for a moment as they looked at her.

"So, that was my other reason for threatening her," she explained, sadly. "It works two ways: If she was a spy, what I said would come off like I was loyal to City Hall. If she wasn't, it told her she was in danger—That City Hall, or at least  _I_ , knew that she was doing something that could get her and her husband killed."

There was a quiet in the room as the mammals processed her explanation. The Happy Towners in particular easily remembered snatches of conversation they'd had with Garou the other day. He'd mentioned leaving town several times and seemed to be in the middle of planning to do exactly that. He'd even mentioned how Cevilla had told him that Hopps was keeping her on the hook for future favours. There was no way he was abiding that for either of them—not when Hopps was the worst-feared of those on the force and had such an awful reputation behind her. The way Garou saw it, Hopps was certain to turn them.

Finnick specifically remembered how the wolf had mentioned to him in passing that he was seriously considering leaving  _that night_. Finnick had also noticed, as the day wore on and things got more dangerous, that what had started as a kind of joke on the wolf's part slowly transformed into a serious option till, at last, it was  _the_  option.

"But I don't get it," said Finnick as he rejoined, "Why would you put yourself in that situation if you knew how dangerous it was? I mean, the way you make it seem, you coulda been killed any second."

Finnick looked at Hopps intently as he waited for an answer, but she remained silent as though debating within herself.

The stillness was broken by Wilde who'd realised the truth of the matter.

"It's because of Otterton."

He spoke gently as he eyed her intently. He'd been watching her very carefully over the course of the conversation, and he wasn't quite sure what to make of her. She was unquestionably brave in the face of what she'd been confronting. In spite of his soft tone, though, his emotions, while largely ambivalent, had more than a tinge of resentment to them. For such a long time, predators had been facing a growing amount of prejudice and hatred, and Sgt. Judy Hopps had been the poster child for the ZPD's violence toward them. Every news conference the police put out about the dark nature of predators, every press junket that blamed predators for the downfall of society, every scare mongering tactic that City Hall had wanted to push, Hopps had been there, leading the charge. She had argued in favour of the TAME collars, argued passionately for segregation, and had campaigned for legislation that would crack down on preds!

So, while the fox admitted that she'd been brave in the face of the obstacles challenging her, she'd also done a lot to damage prey-pred relations in the city. Right and wrong were two lines that never crossed, he reasoned. And she had  _definitely_  crossed that line on several occasions; perhaps even losing sight of her original goal, which was the pursuit of . . . what? The chance to assuage her guilt over Otterton?

Wilde shook his head. It wouldn't do! He just couldn't get over the feelings of distrust and hatred he felt toward her in spite of his simultaneous admiration. What was the difference, he wondered, between being evil and  _pretending_  to be evil? What was the difference between being evil and killing someone versus  _pretending_  to be evil and killing someone? Bottom line, someone was still dead at her hands, moral alignment notwithstanding! Either way he saw it, she had seriously compromised herself and her moral values.

But had she? She had slain no one. She had apparently been working to get predators out of the city, too.

 _'Why would she stay on the force?'_  he wondered.  _'If she knew what they were up to, she should've left.'_  That would've been the right thing to do. The  _sane_  thing to do.

"What I don't get," he started, "is why you  _had_  to stay on the force. If you were trying so hard to be this pillar of goodness," he spat, "why didn't you just give up and go back to being harmless? Do you know how many lives you ruined by being a part of what they were up to?"

She flinched at the accusation and answered seriously. "I did it because someone had to. Nobody would've been able to do what I was doing. I was the only one with access to sensitive information after . . . well, after City Hall trusted me."

Wilde snorted. "Weak, Hopps. Cevilla could have," he countered.

"Cevilla? You think she could do what I was doing?" she asked incredulously.

"No, you're right," he said bitterly, "I can't think of Cevilla doing anything as awful as what you were doing. You got animals hurt or killed, even if you didn't mean to. And every time there was a chance of something going  _our_  way-" said Wilde, "-it was always  _you_  in the papers saying that savage preds like us were dangerous and untrustworthy. So as much as you would like to hide behind the fact that you never killed anyone except for a florist with two kids and a wife, I think we can safely say that you  _contributed_  to the deaths of hundreds." He looked at her flatly and spoke in a dull tone.

His words were a slap in the face. She set her teeth for a moment as his words hit home. In the face of his conviction, her conscience howled that he was wrong, and she answered with a surge of fury that flooded the banks of her composure.

"Hey!" she shouted, "I have saved  _countless_  lives! I've been working for  _your_  benefit and the benefit of everyone here!" she said as she gestured to the room. "I was trying to make things better! I saved Fangmeyer's cub, didn't I?" she asked by way of example. "Not only him but thousands of others who were supposed to die! I put myself on the line to save animals like you!"

"Animals like  _us_ , huh?" asked Wilde as he sat back, unmoved.

"Yeah, animals like you," she emphasised. "Animals in  _trouble_."

"Well, that's just fine," he said lazily. "You go ahead and wrap yourself up in that blanket of praise. It didn't stop you from watching Wolford and Fangmeyer when they were declawed, did it? How many others,  _Sarge_? It didn't stop you from ruining predators' lives, did it? You said you were gonna try to get Fangmeyer out during the raids they were doing in his area, but what about everybody else?!" He sat forward, his eyes sharp as they regarded her. "Come on,  _Sarge_! Tell us! How many others did you sit back and watch suffer? How many times did you sit there and watch my kind die?!"

"I was trying to help whoever I could . . . ."

"Oh yeah, sure," he scoffed.

"It's true! I'm trying to explain the danger that was in it for  _everybody_  involved. I was undercover. Sometimes I  _had_  no other option but to just do nothing!"

"Well," started Wilde, "I must say I'm impressed you could pull off being such a heartless bitch for a year and a half without anybody noticing. Good to know you have it in you. That's one thing: Shit like that seems to come easier to prey like you!"

"You think it came  _easy_  to me?!" she shouted, nearly shrieking, her fury unbound, as she stood up and walked toward the centre of the group. "You think it was  _easy_  to hear the sounds of animals howling in misery?! Do you think it was easy for me to listen to the death rattles of dying animals again and again and again?! To hear the sounds of predators drowning in their own  _blood_?!" Tears tinged the corners of her eyes as awful memories filled the vision of her mind's eye. "Do you think it's  _easy_  to listen to someone in agony as they're being declawed, or what it's like to hear someone ask you to deliver a message to his wife and kids when his wife and kids are dead?!" she finished fiercely. "Yeah," she said brokenly, "let Cevilla take that job Because she's real tough!" she finished sarcastically as tears started pouring down her face. "Do you think  _she'd_  be able to handle that?"

Everyone was dead silent.

"Every day, I have to go into that  _fucking_  operating room and watch for two hours as some poor animal is  _declawed_  and then write a report about it. I have to listen to them scream and  _beg_  for mercy." She wiped her face at the stream of wetness. "When I was given prison duty one time, I had to watch them do a cull," she said painfully. "I was filling in as a glorified janitor. And I watched them march all these chompers out into the yard. God, they were so thin!

"So, since I was the new girl they made me clean up afterward. Like it was just any other job orientation training! Do you have  _any_  idea what that's like?"

Finnick had paled drastically at the description, as had the others in the room, and he trembled as he looked at her. "Wh-why . . . ?" he asked slowly as his own emotions threatened to overtake him.

Hopps let out a sad laugh. "Because . . ." and here there began a hearty mix of sobs and laughter, "they said they were overcrowded. And they were standing over me the whole time, waiting to see if I'd break. Would my 'tough as nails' exterior crack? God, I'll  _never_  forget the smell!"

Honey eyed the group tensely but said nothing.

Once Hopps had collected herself enough to go on, she continued, softly, slowly.

"Things've been this way for a while. And there's nothing I can do to stop it. So yeah!" she suddenly exclaimed through her tears as she looked at Wilde, "I get my paws dirty! I do the dirty work that  _someone_  has to do. I have to face this Every! Day! So, I'm sorry I don't abide by your strict moral compass. I wish I could follow it, too! But instead, I gave that up. I gave up having a  _soul_  because if leaving behind a better world is all I can do, then I'm gonna try! I can't  _change_  the world; I can only light my corner of it. But there's just  _so much_  to fight against. But if I stop . . ." and here her tears started to fall again, "if I stop, that's one less animal I could have helped but didn't. And no, things  _don't_  always work out perfectly. Animals have  _died_  on my watch before. But at least I tried. I  _have_  to try, or I'm just like  _them_."

Hopps heaved a breath and sat back down before collecting her thoughts. After a pregnant pause, she spoke again. "I don't expect  _any_  of you to forgive me. I've done too much, I know; and I can't even forgive myself for it," she started haltingly, "but that doesn't matter to me so much. I-I just hope that you can at least understand . . . ."

Another silence followed. Everyone seemed to be looking around awkwardly at the ground, save for Nick and Judy who eyed the rabbit sitting across from them attentively.

As Judy contemplated Hopps, she saw herself reflected clearly in more than just her looks—the façade the sergeant wore, a mere product of the world in which she'd been living. Judy had had to wear such a façade for  _one day_ , and it had worn her completely thin by the end. Here, Judy saw before her a bunny who'd been broken in pieces. How she managed with no support and no way to vent her resentment and hatred of the city, which had forced her into its bloody service, was a mystery to her. Even now, Judy noticed the way her double leant against the back of the chair not only for support but for refuge; as though somehow, sitting there, she would be safe.

Nick's feelings, on the other hand, were leading him down a train of thought. Seeing Hopps—the way she spoke, the way she thought, the way she defended herself—was clearly Judy at her core. Or so it seemed in light of the things she had revealed. The more he thought about it, the more certain pieces started falling into place for him: She'd had to pretend to be cruel while secretly working for the benefit of prey animals, had been sneaking captured animals out of the city to get them to safety, had been halting executions and operations whenever she could . . . . The events of the other day suddenly all fell into place, his realisation casting her in a new light as he voiced the feeling in his gut.

"You're the one who had me picked up," he said with a soft intensity. "That's how they knew where I was, isn't it?" he asked as he leant forward.

Hopps looked up from her paws to see Nick staring at her intently. She nodded slightly, a shy smile lifting the corner of her mouth. "Yeah, I called Honey after I . . . left you there."

"That's why you stopped . . . what they were doing," he said, slowing as the awful memories came flooding back. He shuddered—he could still feel the cold steel of the scalpel as it pressed beneath his claw, into his skin. His chest seized for a moment as anxiety gripped him. "You saved me from being declawed," he finished gratefully, though shaken at the recollection.

She nodded again. "I'm sorry," she started weakly, "for what I said, by the way. I didn't mean . . . ."

"I understand. I get it," said Nick as he held up a paw, though a terseness had entered his tone. "I'm not over it, but . . . I get it." He paused and grit his teeth for a second as he thought back to the gripping terror he'd felt in that hopeless moment, before continuing through the mask of his resilience. "I just needed to say thanks for that."

His mate took his paw and held it tightly. He looked at Judy and squeezed hers back, smiling as she patted the top of it before they both turned back to Hopps.

"I needed to say thank you, too," said Judy. "Nick is everything to me and I don't know what I would have done if anything'd happened to him."

"Something did happen to him," said Hopps gloomily as she eyed her double. "This place-" she gestured around herself, "-happened to him. This place happens to all of us," she gestured to the Happy Towners. "Nobody escapes it."

"How did you keep it from getting to you?" asked Judy. "I barely lasted a day. I have no idea what I'd do if I'd accidentally  _killed_  someone."

"Well,  _tricked_  into killing someone," said Honey, somewhat soothingly.

"No," said Hopps as she looked at Honey. "Don't sugarcoat it. We both know what I did." She turned to Judy and eyed her keenly before going on. "You do it because you have to," she sighed. "Animals depended on me—I couldn't just fall apart. Even though I did for a while."

"What do you mean?" asked Judy.

That was something that needed explaining, too, Hopps realised.

"There's more to . . . well, the story I was telling you."

Nick nodded. "After Otterton died."

Hopps nodded. "That's not the end of it." Hopps sighed in the wake of the silence.

"What more is there?" asked Judy.

After a beat:

"You've worked a murder case, haven't you?" asked Hopps as she eyed her twin cautiously.

Judy nodded carefully.

Hopps smiled sadly. "Then, you probably an idea of what I'm about to say: A murder," she began, affecting an informative tone, "isn't the beginning of a story—it's the end of one."

Judy looked puzzled for a moment,—as did everyone else in the room—before the realisation struck.

"I think I get what you mean," said Judy measuredly. "A murder's . . . like, the end of a series of events that led to a particular animal's death."

Nick nodded appreciatively.

"Exactly," started Hopps, excited that her thoughts were resonating. "And when you're working a case, you gotta start at the end and work your way back. A lotta times, we like to look for motive first, but that's backwards. You gotta unravel the whole story first before you can really get  _why_  something happened."

Hopps paused, and it seemed to Nick at that moment—as Hopps was expressing herself so excitedly and passionately—that he saw in her,  _clearly_ , for the first time, the  _exact_  image of the Judy he knew and loved. The light that shone in her eyes was the same bright, idealistic, and hopeful look he'd fallen in love with. He looked down at Judy and put his arm around her and held her to his side. At that moment, he was reminded of every good thing he had in his paws.

Judy looked up at him and smiled, the same shimmering, hopeful look in her eyes.

Nick looked away slowly and turned his gaze slightly to regard Wilde out of the corner of his eye. His twin's expression was mostly unreadable, but Nick thought he could detect a note of interest.

Nick knew himself well, and if his twin were anything like him, he also knew that Hopps was gonna have to break him down by degrees. In fact, her battle was going to be even more uphill than Judy's was since Judy'd started with a semi-clean slate while Hopps had a year and a half's worth of baggage behind her. Nevertheless, he wondered what the others would see when they saw the real Hopps for the first time.

Nick turned back to the rabbit before him as she sighed before going on.

"It's weird how in this case," she said softly, "it was police procedure that ended up getting me into even more trouble."

She regarded the Happy Towners carefully before finishing her story.

-.-.-.-

_A Year and Two Months Ago_

The next few days were a blur in her mind—A whirlwind of press conferences and interviews, each more frustrating than the last.

_"So you're saying that predators are predisposed to going savage at any moment?!"_

_The gopher sat across from her at round interview table. He leant forward as he spoke, peering at her through his glasses and crossing his arms as he waited for an answer._

_Judy sat back and fidgeted uncomfortably in her chair, shrinking under his gaze. The brightness of the stage lights, coupled with her anxiety and general confusion, were muddling her thoughts._

_Next to her, Chief Swinton nudged her, urging her to answer._

_Judy looked down at the list of talking points in her paws and continued. "It seems that way," she said, "but I don-"_

_"Oh, give us a break, Officer!" insisted the gopher. "We know what happened in that alley and we know what's been going on city wide! It's been in all the papers! Chompers left and right have been going savage and injuring innocent prey on the street. There's **got**  to be a connection, hasn't there?"_

_"When you put it that way, sure, it ma-"_

_"So, you agree then?"_

_"I . . . I've been on administrative leave since the incident. If there've been any other developments, you'd need to a-"_

_"Chompers have been going feral," said the interviewer. "You have to admit that something needs to be done to stop these savages, right?"_

_"Yes, but I have no idea wh-"_

_"And you're saying you think it's all just some coincidence?"_

_"No, I **don't**  think it's a coincidence! Yes," she started as she looked back down at her sheet, "it is happening only to chompers—probably something biological like you said! And yes, something needs to be done about it!" She huffed as she finished reading down the main points._

_"Thank you officer Hopps, you've been very informative." The interviewer looked into the camera before he continued. "Come back tomorrow, folks, when our guest will b-"_

Judy turned off the television and flopped back onto the bed.

She sighed and looked over at the nightstand. On it lay the sheet of paper detailing the talking points Chief Swinton and Deputy Bogo had wanted her to push every chance she got. Now, for not the first time, she got the feeling it was accusing her.

At first, she'd been in such a daze from the unbelievable turn of events that she hadn't given much thought to what she was being asked to say. She'd been going on and on about the natural, violent, and feral predispositions latent in all chompers without a second thought. Her mind had been in a fog of confusion, guilt, and fear—three emotions that hadn't lent her much time to mend the trauma she felt. As one day stretched into five, and as she began to realise the full impact of what she was saying, she found to her surprise that she agreed with it.

The most recent headlines, both in the papers on the web, all told the same story—In the days following her  _own_  run in, savages were going feral all over the city. And it seemed intimately linked to their biology: a self-evident fact since animals of the predator class were the only ones changing.

After going over it again and again in her mind, she couldn't escape the conclusion that  _that_  was why this was happening. But then, why some and not others? Was it a disease? She couldn't make sense of it; and then again, it didn't really matter.

Her ambivalence over the talking points came from the fact that she was being used. She was certain of it. There was an agenda here, somewhere—but she couldn't say where and what it was. Preds were going feral—so that wasn't it. Preds were predisposed biologically to hunt and kill prey—so  _that_  wasn't it. And they seemed to be predisposed to violence if news of the protests were anything to be believed.

She groaned to herself. If only preds were able to see themselves as clearly as she saw them now, they would understand that there was no reason to be angry. Violence was just a part of their nature—you can't fix a problem if you don't acknowledge it, she thought. And these preds  _definitely_  had a problem. With every bloody protest they held, it only reconfirmed in her mind their aggressive tendencies.

More and more, she'd had to turn away from the news in disgust. Especially when TV pundits suggested chompers had founded some secret society bent on hunting prey. All the same, she found her mind giving the idea a certain credence. It was a  _ridiculous_  notion, and yet, in spite of that, Hopps found herself falling for it, in some small way, more and more. The idea that predators had developed a primal taste for blood had become a terrifying possibility made real to her by the horrors plaguing her dreams.

Even now, she could see the gaping jaws of Mr. Otterton—His sharp, pointed teeth aimed for her throat. She shuddered and tried to blink the image from her mind; it lingered, though, and she tried turning her thoughts to other concerns with little success.

Many restless evenings since that awful night, she'd awoken screaming, her pillow wet with tears, as she struggled for breath against the suffocating, horrifying darkness of the apartment.

These horrors would almost immediately find themselves replaced in her visions by images of Otterton in death.

As the tumult of emotions in her dreaming life swirled through her, the feelings of guilt would eventually come through, transforming his terrifying visage.

In  _those_  dreams, he was an angel! His harmless, gentle face looking peaceful in repose. A harmless creature who'd never hurted any. There was no way he would have harmed anyone intentionally, was there? His face belied the aggressiveness with which she'd been attacked, and in her dreams, she could see herself caressing his face. She would awaken then—sharp pangs of guilt—like daggers!—through her heart, sending her once again into a spiral of tears and sadness.

And she would never be able to forget the sight of his sobbing wife and children on the news.

Photo after photo of him confirmed her impression. There was  _nothing_  aggressive about this otter; which only meant—Chief Swinton had told her—that it  _had_  to be something in their genes.

Judy covered her face. She felt as though she were being torn apart! And her emotions conflicted with each other more than ever. While on the one paw, there was no way she could believe that Otterton, that sweet little otter—even shorter than her—would go savage for the hell if it, she also couldn't clear her mind off the terror she felt in the face of the images of him frozen in her brain.

Her argument with Garou the week before had been about this issue precisely; and yet now, she was here: reconfirming her initial prejudices. She  _had_  to believe the evidence of her own eyes. Perhaps it was due to the isolation during her leave, but the more time she spent alone, the crazier this started to feel. And the more time she sat reading tale after tale of feral savage, the more she started to believe what she read from the prompter sitting on her nightstand. Her terror and anxiety had only grown over time, feeding her fears. She was building a wall of distance and solitude between herself and the world. She could  _not_  let herself crack!

Cevilla had made it a point to stop by on several occasions to comfort her. At least at first. Judy noticed that with each press conference she gave—with each passing day—Cevilla's tone and manners toward her changed. Where at first the doe's voice had been one of comfort, over time it changed to desperation. Then to anger, then to fury—with the doe pounding on her door, demanding answers as to why she was trashing predators on television; till finally, she'd left her alone.

All this in the space of five days.

And still, she kept her door firmly bolted against the outside world whenever she could.

What was worst of all was she felt like she had failed herself. The brave bunny, supposedly the hero of Zootopia, was hidden beneath the walls of her grey apartment.

Oh sure, City Hall was quick to extol her virtues and made much of how brave she was in the face of Death. She was the mighty pred hunter. Or so the propaganda posters read.

More and more in the press, she was painted as a gunslinging heroine who'd managed to take down a vicious predator.

She'd gotten everything she ever wanted—the praise, the recognition of her worth, and maybe a promotion. Rumour had it.

And yet, something didn't feel right in her gut.

Judy stretched out lengthwise on her bed, put her arms behind her head, and sighed.

She had seen the shrink appointed by the city to evaluate her after the shooting. It was odd to her that the shrink, in spite of her initial misgivings about having killed Otterton, assured her that she should feel no guilt. Especially since she'd been choosing between her life and his. She made no mention of the fact that she hadn't known what kind of gun she'd been holding. Such an arm for policing duty was unheard of. No one carried guns in the city. Except for tranqs, guns harkened back to days when animals warred amongst and hunted each other.

She closed her eyes as these thoughts weighed on her.

Nobody had said this to her directly, but it seemed to her that the overwhelming message she was getting from others was that his life had been worth less than hers. And now Lionheart was pressuring the mayor for an investigation.

She covered her face with her paws again as her thoughts ran wild.

It was getting to be too much for her.

She reached over to her nightstand and turned off the light. It was only eight seventeen and she already felt exhausted.

She didn't even bother getting out of her clothes but merely inhaled and exhaled deeply as she closed her eye, hoping for a dreamless sleep

-.-.-.-

_Five Weeks Later_

Judy sat, nursing a drink, the stress of the preceding weeks the source of the terrific headache currently assaulting her as she mulled over the events in her life that had led to this current frustration.

The noise in the city calling for an investigation and trial had grown louder than ever over the following weeks. Eventually, the pressure from the Lionheart family had forced Mayor Bellwether to approve it. In the days that followed the mayor's assent, the investigation had been forced through the appropriate channels. With that, Hopps found herself more and more at the mercy of politics rather than anything amounting to justice.

Leodore Lionheart, in particular, had enough wealth and influence to force the issue, and he lent his support to the predators in the city who'd risen up against her. He couldn't be ignored.

Hopps had been beside herself throughout the situation as it unfolded and found herself howlingly resentful of the process. She had been interrogated relentlessly to the point nearly of tears. Swinton, though, had insisted that the investigation would come to nothing.

But then came the demands for a grand jury trial.

And  _again_ , she was put through the wringer.

Continually, both Bogo and Bellwether had reassured her that the grand jury was merely a show in order to pacify the noisy savages in the city whose vengeful, mean-spirited voices clamoured for justice. They said the same thing the following week—the fourth since the incident—when the grand jury came back with a verdict to formally indict her on a count of murder in the second degree.

_'It's all because of those fucking savages, Hopps. Ever since the amalgamation of Happy Town into Zootopia, thing's've gone downhill. Without those fucking chompers, none of this would be happening.'_

Judy recalled Swinton's words a few days ago when the motion to indict had been reached. The chief had made a point of putting an arm around her comfortingly as she delivered the news. Swinton had gone on to explain that the ratios in the city had changed since the inclusion of Happy Town and that the percentages stood more like fifty-six to forty-four—with prey still the majority holders.

The unfairness of it all infuriated Judy! Her name was being dragged through the mud and all because some filthy otter had doped himself up and beaten his wife. Oh, yes—she  _had_  seen that in the news, too.

The coroner's report had been clear that a psychotropic drug, with which the coroner himself was unfamiliar, had been found in the creature's blood. And yet  _she_  was being criticised for killing him! The miserable thing had beaten its wife and attacked its home before storming off, and yet she was getting the blame?! Fuck that!

Swinton and Bellwether had been so kind to her, held her paw through every meeting and interview since. She wouldn't've been able to make this ordeal through without them. It had been five weeks, now, since the shooting, and over time she'd only gotten more hate in the press.

Predator columnists had called her lawless, degenerate,  _morally wanting_!

She couldn't stand it and she cursed the day she ever came to the city.

So yeah, she lashed out at the preds! Her fury grew as with each passing day, the hate mail, the barrage of insults, the outright violence coming from the community she'd sworn to protect piled on her back like a torment aiming to break her!

She lashed out savagely in press interviews, disparaging predators as inherently stupid, vile creatures; the hatred she was receiving from them entirely unprovoked.

 _"How dare you call out my entire class,"_ roared a tiger during her latest interview _. "We've done **nothing**  to you!"_

 _"That's where you wrong!"_ she'd fired back.  _"If I seem angry now, it's because I learned it from you!"_ she shouted as she pounded the table. _"I was worried sick over what happened to Otterton, but the only thing I've learned now is that I was wrong. You **are** savages!"_

Hopps winked the memory from her mind. Ruminating over such things had done her no good, and the trial started tomorrow. She expected nothing more from the city officials than a slap on the wrist. Even if worse came to worse, Bellwether had promised her a pardon.

She was in a bar, sitting alone at a booth, nursing an alcohol fermented from cherries. It was sweet and strong, and she'd been taking quite a lot of it in the past few days.

She was in the habit of choosing a dark corner near the back to avoid the eyes of most animals there. She was recognisable on sight to most within the city, now; and she had come to despise the laud coming from those who hailed her as a hero.

It would be six weeks from the start of this whole mess and she couldn't wait for the whole thing to be over. Chief Swinton and Mayor Bellwether had assured her a swift trial in her favour. While normally any suggestion that the wheels of justice were being greased would have set her teeth on edge, Judy had come to feel since it was first suggested—within the first week of the shooting—that she deserved this exemption.

At least this once, she thought, justice would be better served through this subversion. She had already paid enough with her reputation as a villain. Rumours had tanked her standing as a law abiding cop. If that's all preds in the city were ever going to see in her, why bother to be anything else?

It was bitter!

Cevilla and Garou had both grown distant over time. When Hopps finally did feel up to having some company, she found both Cevilla and Garou as cold as ice. Yes, perhaps she had made mistakes along the way, but she insisted she was only reporting the facts and hadn't been trying in any way to hurt predators throughout the city. They wouldn't hear of it, and she found people turning from her little by little. She couldn't even speak to her parents. What could she say to them? More to the point, she was ashamed of what she had done to the family name.

As far as Garou and Cevilla went, things had spiralled out; and with that, her opinions on preds in general. She'd become mean and frazzled.

And her nightmares weren't doing anything to assuage her grief, either; and the shrink whom she'd been seeing continued to dismiss her fears and her dreams as irrational. Everybody had insisted to her that she'd done the right thing, that she was a good cop, that she was what this city needed.

So then why was she so sick?!

Why had her dreams become more and more terrifying?!

She slammed her fist down on the table as the cascade of thoughts tumbled through her.

The clink of her glass at the impact of her fist awakened her to her surroundings. She looked around and saw several patrons looking at her.

Embarrassed, she turned away to stare down into her drink. She downed it quickly before signalling for another.

"Big day tomorrow," came a feminine voice behind her. "You wouldn't wanna overdo it."

Hopps looked up slowly to see a badger looking down at her—She was poised, reserved, and in control.

"How 'bout you mind your own business," said Hopps as she turned back to stare ahead.

"You  _are_  my business, Carrots," said the badger as she came around the bunny to stand in front of her. "May I sit down?"

Judy looked up at her wearily beneath her eyelashes and nodded slightly while surreptitiously drawing her gun, keeping it concealed beneath the table.

The badger sat down and smiled at her as she caught the eye of a nearby waiter who nodded. He came over and took the badger's order before going off to mix the drink. In the meantime, another waitress came over and set Judy's drink in front of her before wordlessly leaving.

Judy and the badger sat in silence for a moment. They only looked at each other. Judy eyed the badger suspiciously. She examined every aspect of the creature sitting before her but for the life of her couldn't read a single thing from it.

The bunny set her teeth, rather certain that this was going to be another reaming from another pred. Death threats had been flooding her mailbox, and it wasn't too long ago that Bogo had suggested she carry a weapon with her. Judy's initial reluctance had been transformed by the aggressive manner in which she'd been treated by predators at nearly every opportunity when out and about.

She'd been attacked, punched, and beaten when alone on errands. Publicly humiliated and abused in full daylight! She had been frightened to the point where she didn't want to leave her apartment, and every time she did, she had grown afraid that that day would be the day . . . that someone finally went too far.

That was when Bogo had suggested the gun. Not just a tranq gun, but the bullet gun she'd used before. And she had accepted it without question. Fear had taken over her mind, and it made her feel safer.

Staring at the badger across from her now, she could see the brightness of her yellow eyes shining out from the half-darkness. They stood out in relief like gems against the shadows, and Judy swore she could feel them piercing her.

She inhaled deeply and undid the gun's safety.

Was this . . . it . . . ? Was this the moment that someone tried to kill her?

The waitress returned to their table and set the badger's drink before her. She scuttled off, sensing the tension between them before anything else could be said.

Judy took another sip, looking over the rim of the cup, as she eyed the creature. It seemed almost motionless as it stared at her—that badger.

"Preds aren't allowed here," said Judy carefully.

The badger merely frowned at first, but picked up her glass and took a sip after a moment.

"It pays to have friends in high places," said the creature after a moment. "What about you,  _Officer_? Do you have friends?"

Judy took a breath and paused for a moment as she looked at the badger before casting them down to her glass.

"Just this cup," she said after a moment before looking back up at the badger.

"And Bogo? And Swinton? And all the other  _swine_  in the city?" she spat.

Judy's eyebrow twitched. "I have them, too. Just wait and see. Not that I'm threatening you,  _Savage_ , but if you try anything-"

The badger snorted and looked away toward the bar. "Oh, I wouldn't dream of it. You and your entourage would have me dead before your blood touched the ground,  _Prey_."

Judy steadily aimed the gun beneath the table, taking a nervous breath. Her paw trembled, keeping her finger carefully off the trigger. She kept her eye steady.

The badger looked at her out of the corner of its eye. "You can put your gun away," she drawled slowly. "I'm not here to kill you."

"Then what do you want in this part of town, Savage? Isn't there a curfew?"

"Like I said, Prey," she replied coolly, "I have friends in high places."

"Not as high as mine," replied Hopps.

"No, you're right," started the badger. "Not as high as yours, Prey."

"You're gonna wanna stop calling me that," said Hopps as she narrowed her eyes at the badger, her tone lowering dangerously.

"Why should I? It's what you are."

"Oh, you think so?" returned Hopps in a low whisper. "You think I don't know how to hunt? I can kill as well as the rest of you."

"I've never killed anyone," said the badger smoothly. "So, who's the Savage?"

Hopps felt a lurch in her chest as the insinuation hit home, but said nothing and allowed no sign nor blemish mar her steady gaze.

"You think we all don't see what you're becoming,  _Savage_?" said the badger. "We all see it and we all know it. And I see  _you,_  Hopps. I saw you in your first interview. You wear your heart on your sleeve. Or you  _did_. Before  _they_  got to you."

Hopps said nothing but ground her teeth as she tried to tamp down her anger.

"The rest of this city may not have a good memory, Savage—but  _I_  have a very good memory. No one gave you much attention at first. There are chompers in the city even now who have no idea who you are. The mask of oppression in this city gets passed around here so often it's hard for a lot of us to tell who's who. You're just one face in a long line of animals who think they can get away with anything."

"You don't know anything about me," said Hopps in a low voice.

"Don't I? I know you're not who  _they_  say you are."

"And who is ' _they_ '?" she asked sharply.

"Your 'friends,' of course."

Judy pounded the table and leant forward.

" _I_  am what  _you_  and  _your_  kind have  _made_  me!" she said in a harsh whisper. "What the hell are you here for?"

The badger sat back and smirked. "I'm here to tell your fortune."

Hopps scoffed and turned away as she got up to leave.

"You're being played, Savage."

Judy looked back at her confused. "What the hell are you talking about?"

She shrugged. "You're being played," she said again. "You can't tell me you haven't seen it."

Judy felt a bomb go off in her mind.

 _'There has to be an agenda somewhere!'_  her mind echoed. It was a thought that had recurred in the early days following the shooting but had slowly dissolved away into the darkness of her heart.

Judy felt a tingle down her spine as the badger's words resurrected the long-dead thought.

Her unease at the developments in her case had been forcibly tucked away as being merely the imaginings of a distraught animal—and yet now, somehow, this badger had managed to speak directly to those concerns. At every turn, she'd found her worries and misgivings dismissed as the product of a delicate conscience—painted over with kind platitudes and promotions.

In spite of herself, in spite of the danger she felt in the presence of this creature, Judy couldn't help that part of herself that wanted someone to  _listen_  to those feelings. A side of herself that  _yearned_  to be acknowledged.

She gave nothing away in her face nor in her body language but merely turned back to the badger, slowly.

The badger regarded her knowingly. "Shall I . . . continue with my fortune?"

Judy balled her paws and made no sign to acknowledge the badger's question.

It merely smirked at the rabbit and continued. "At first, you just wanted to be a normal cop with a normal beat. But as time wore on, you found out that you were just someone's pet—Chief Swinton's little mascot. Too tall for Little Rodentia, too small for the rest of the city. A total misfit living betwixt and between two worlds. But then, all of a sudden, you kill 'the beast that no one can kill,' and you, 'the one least likely,' save the day. Except instead of 'the beast that no one can kill,' you took the life of a meek little otter with a wife and kids. He made a meagre living as a florist, but who the hell cares about that? What matters is the blame.

"And at first, you blamed yourself, because you're not a killer by nature. No one but the ones up top are aware of the fact that you killed that otter by accident. And it turns out that the brave story of 'the one least likely' who comes back as a hero is still the weak, spineless, and terrified bunny that you were in that alley. Your 'friends' up top see this and think to themselves, 'Oh, we can't have this,' so they take it upon themselves to turn you into a monster. They tell you what to say, what to do, and what to think. And you do: because in spite of being a Savage, you can never quite get rid of your meek little herd mentality. It's not your fault—all prey have that instinct, but in this case, it happens to be your downfall." The badger smirked. "How does that sound?"

Hopps pinned her ears back. Now, she  _was_  trembling all over. Carefully, she reached for the gun again as she spoke. "Did you forget the part where you savages started going wild and murdering innocent prey left and right? Did you forget the part where I was attacked on the streets out doing random errands? Just minding my own business and I was attacked?!" She upholstered the gun. "Or how about the part where all your little peaceful protests turned into violent attacks on innocent mammals?" She undid the safety and aimed carefully . . .

"Oh, you dumb, stupid bunny . . ." said the badger as she trailed off. The creature shook its head and met the bunny's gaze. "You have no idea who your friends are."

It suddenly felt quiet in the bar, and Judy swore she'd be able to hear a pin drop. Her breath shook as she felt the walls of anxiety and danger closing in on her. She licked her lips.

The badger held her gaze. "The sad thing is, you won't know the hammer's fallen till it's crushing you. You're being set up in more ways than you know."

"I believe the evidence of my own eyes," said the bunny.

"And that's your problem," said the badger. "You see everything so clearly and yet don't see  _anything_. With all your carrot eating," she continued measuredly, "you have the best eyesight of anyone—but you have no  _perception_!"

There was a pause in which neither of them spoke for a moment. It was Hopps who finally broke the silence.

"Are you gonna tell anyone?"

The badger cocked an eyebrow. "About you being a fraud?"

When Hopps said nothing, she continued.

"No. Right now, I'm enjoying the fact that you're twisting in the wind."

Hopps' face reddened in anger beneath her fur.

"Put your gun away. It won't do you any good here."

Hopps made no move, and when she didn't, the badger sighed.

"Or, do whatever you want. But, I want to ask you one favour."

Hopps glared at her. Still nothing.

"Rumour has it . . . your trial is only going to last two days. There's something I need to show you. Come and meet me here—same time. And if you're interested, I'll tell you more about your future here."

Without waiting for an answer, the badger stood up and made the long walk back to the front of the bar. She stopped at the cash box for a moment before heading out the door.

Hopps watched her attentively before turning back to stare at where the badger had been sitting.

 _Too_  much of what the badger'd said had struck home.

She safetied the gun before returning it to her holster for the second time and took a moment to ponder the strange encounter before finishing the last of her drink and heading to the front.

She found to her surprise that her tab had been paid by the creature.

She was curious in spite of herself as she walked out of the bar, and she turned the conversation over in her mind. And while she had no great desire to see the badger again, she knew that she would come again the next evening. She hurried her steps down the pavement as she made the short walk home.

Her dreams that night were more vivid than ever. She could hear Otterton's voice ringing in her ears as he cried out, again and again—his words lost in the void as he screamed at her unintelligibly.

_Saveme **nightho** wle **rssav** eme **night** howlerssave **menig** hthowlerssavemenig **htho** wler **ss** avemenighthowlersnighthow **lersnighth** owle **rsnightho** wlers **nighthowlers** nighth **owl** ersnight **HOW** lersnighthowle **rsni** ghthowlersni **ghth** owlersni **ghthow** lersnigh **thowlersnighthowlers** nightho **wlersmu** rdermemurderme **mu** r **derm** emurderme **murderme** m **urd** erm **emurd** ermemurder **mem** urderme_

**_MURDER_ ** _!_

Judy awoke screaming as the final shout echoed through her soul. She sat up and choked back sobs as tears came streaming down her face. She sat there for a few minutes before collapsing to her side. She raked her claws across her face and sobbed until she was too tired to go on.

At last, her shaking subsided, and she sighed even as her tears kept coming.

She let them come. And cried herself to sleep.

-.-.-.-

The following morning, she awoke to find that her mind was strangely clear, as though she'd awoken from a very long and satisfying sleep. Odd, since she clearly remembered the awful dream that had awoken her that night. But strangely, it was a sense that she was making headway on something, but she didn't know what it was.

Things suddenly seemed brighter than they ever had before in the face of such awfulness, and she laughed at the feeling. It were as though some weight had been lifted from her shoulders, and she didn't know why.

Someone had heard her, she realised. Someone had understood her suffering. Her charade. Her façade. And in spite of the way that creature had pried into her life last night, she found herself grateful on some level that at last she had someone who would confirm her misgivings.

She looked over at her nightstand clock as she got out of bed. She'd awoken before her alarm even went off—the time read five thirty-seven.

She switched off the alarm and went straight to shower and dress for court.

She had a long day ahead of her, and she didn't want to face it at all, really. As she dressed, she considered making a trail of candy bars from her door to the bed so she'd have something pleasant to come home to that afternoon. But, she decided against it—there were certain levels of patheticness she wasn't quite yet willing to stoop to.

She steeled herself as she headed out, wishing for a moment that everything that had happened up to that point were happening to someone else in some other universe. Taking a deep breath, she opened the door and faced the day.

-.-.-.-

_7:11 PM_

"Did you like the way that Otterton was portrayed in court today?"

Judy took a measured breath before sipping from her glass.

The question hung in the air and seemed genuine to all appearances. The badger who'd asked it looked across the table at her, expecting an answer.

After a long day of litigation, the rabbit was tired and her nerves were extremely frayed. Though she'd had some time to herself before seven to regroup, the trial had been as hellish as she'd pictured it. All the same questions, all the same, mixed feelings she'd had since the beginning, came storming back in full force due, in no small part, she was sure, to the badger's words last night.

"I don't know, what you mean," she lied. She knew exactly what the badger meant but had no idea how she knew it. The courtroom had been closed and the jury were gagged.

Being in the presence of Swinton and Bellwether had had the effect of shoring up her resolve, and yet she found it crumbling in the face of the badger now. Perhaps because she finally had someone who would listen to her misgivings. Not that that's what she expected  _tonight_.

The creature eyed her intently. "I think you know exactly what I mean, Savage."

Judy grit her teeth.

"I know you don't agree with what they said about him. I can see it in your face."

"Like I said," began the rabbit, "you don't know anything about me."

"Except that you're being manipulated," she returned lightly. "You know that what they said about Otterton was a lie."

Hopps said nothing for a moment. "Is that all you came here to tell me?"

The badger laughed once. "No. I came here to tell you that you're in grave danger from the people you're relying on, and it's gonna get you in trouble if you don't watch your step."

"I don't have to worry about them," said Judy dismissively.

"You do. Do you think it was a coincidence that Otterton ended up dead? He was marked from the beginning. What they  _weren't_  counting on was that you were the one who was gonna pull the trigger. You can't tell me that that doesn't bother you, by the way—that they're using bullets?"

Judy inhaled sharply.

The badger nodded knowingly.

"Poor little savage," she drawled. "You don't know a thing . . . ."

Judy pounded the table furiously. "Then why don't you stop playing games and  _tell_  me?!" she hissed fervently. The creature eyed her coolly—that creature sitting across from her—before answering.

"You wouldn't believe me," she finally said as she looked away.

"Maybe. You'd need to prove it to me, though," said Judy.

The badger laughed. "You wouldn't like its price."

Judy sat back and smirked. "Then you have nothing."

"Now who's playing games?" asked the badger as she leant forward. "You wanna know what the price is? What the proof is?"

Judy rolled her eyes. "I'm all ears," she said sarcastically.

"The proof . . . is your death."

Hopps rolled her eyes again. "How dramatic of you."

There was a lull in the conversation, and the badger looked off out the window, as though in deep thought.

"Is that the rest of the fortune you came here to tell me?" asked Judy. "That I'm going to die?"

"No," replied the badger flatly without turning to look at her. She sighed before looking back at the rabbit.

Judy couldn't swear to it, but for a moment she saw what she thought was pity in the badger's expression. It was gone the next moment as the badger opened her mouth to speak.

"Do you remember the story of Julius Caesar?"

Hopps nodded slightly.

"Do you remember how he died?"

"Stabbed to death by five of his friends," said Judy as she wondered what the hell this had to do with anything.

"That's your fortune."

Judy scoffed. "What the hell are y-"

"You're a farm girl, aren't you?" interrupted the badger.

"What are you . . . ?"

"Just . . . answer me . . . . Do you know how to farm?"

"I know how to farm, but I swear: if you're about to make a carrot farming jo-"

"I'm not!" implored the creature. "I'm just . . . just follow me down a thought experiment. Or rabbit hole, if you will," she smiled.

Judy worried that if she rolled her eyes one more time they'd get lodged in the corner of her skull.

After another moment, Judy realised that the badger was still waiting for an answer.

"Yes, I know what  _carrot_  farming is like," she said between grit teeth.

"Do you ever think," continued the badger, "what things might have been like if we preds haven't given up our savage ways?"

Judy snorted. "You  _haven't_."

The badger's eyes narrowed dangerously. "Oh, you don't think so? Then why isn't every prey in Zootopia dead? Because most of us want peace," she said. The creature was  _livid_. as it stood up. " _If_  I really wanted to, you don't think that I wouldn't have the power to tear you and every other animal in this room to shreds  _without_  the use of a gun?!"

Hopps sat back and felt the old fear rise in her chest again. For a moment, before the savage calmed, she wished she'd thought to bring her gun with her, but for some reason, she'd felt safe with the creature tonight.

The badger sat back in her place.

Judy shuddered. The creature still eyed her from the shadows, and it made her uneasy.

"So," continued the badger as she regained control of her temper, "I'll ask you again—clearly, not  _all_  of us 'savages' are mindless ferals—what do you think would have become of you prey?"

Hopps offered nothing. The question confused her. What the hell did  _that_  have to do with farming? Like predators would ever run a farm! If they did, it'd have to be a farm fo-

And then it hit her. Judy paled beneath her fur at the suggestion, and the badger smiled sinisterly.

"You get it?" asked the creature.

Judy said nothing. She felt rather petrified by the sensation of anxiety she was suddenly feeling.

The badger leant forward. "We are living in an animal farm. Right here, right now. Only things aren't the way you'd expect them to be. If we preds had wanted to, we probably could have started running farms where instead of breeding vegetables we'd breed prey. Raising them up for slaughter. Can you imagine what  _your_  life would be, Savage, if you had been born into that kind of slavery?"

"We're all equal here in Zootopia," said Judy carefully. "Nobody here's a slave."

"You think so?" chuckled the badger. "You're wrong. In such an animal farm, some animals would be rulers over the others— _we preds_  would be the rulers. There would be no charade to hide behind—prey would be our livestock. Here in Zootopia, things are more subtle. Sure, you say that we're all equal—but if you're a pred animal living in this city you learn very quickly that  _some animals are more equal than others_.

"The trouble for you, Savage," continued the badger, "is that you're in the same boat with the rest of us—but you're worse off than us chompers. Which is something that's  _very_  difficult to manage. We're all living on this animal farm, Savage; and we're all devouring each other in different ways. And now, your friends are raising you like a pig for slaughter."

Judy was silent for a moment. She was totally confused and utterly unable to understand what the creature was saying. She was speaking in half-truths, analogies, and metaphors.

"Maybe it's the dumb bunny in me," started Hopps as she leaned forward, "but I need you to tell me what the hell you mean."

"Alright," started the badger after a pause. "Your friends at the ZPD are stitching you up. They're going to kill you as soon as the trial's over, which'll probably be tomorrow."

Judy just stared at her incredulously.

"What?" she asked flatly after a brief pause.

"They're going to kill you," repeated the badger, a deadly seriousness in her voice. "They want you to be a martyr to their cause so that they can justify killing  _us_  next."

Judy started to laugh but stopped when she saw the badger was serious. Suddenly flushing with anger, Judy leant across the table in a flash. "Now you listen to me,  _Feral_ : Yeah, maybe there are a few questions that I have about the case but  _none_  of that points to  _anybody_  of the prey class that would do such a thing. Otterton went savage and that's a fact. Probably because he was taking some drug that messed him up! And it also doesn't take away the fact that you chompers have been treating me like shit."

"Get used to  _that_ ," said the badger.

" _You!_ " started Hopps angrily before checking herself and looking around the bar to make sure she wasn't making a scene. To her relief, their earnest chatter had gone on relatively unobserved.

She sat back down and eyed the creature angrily.

"Yeah, it makes sense," continued the badger, "that chompers would be calling you names. I'm sure that's so much worse than being killed in an alley . . . ."

"And  _attacked_!" said Hopps, rather loudly.

The badger looked at her strangely before a look of realisation came over the creature. "Ah, so is that what goaded you into your current prejudice?"

"That," said Judy slowly, "and the fact that you've all been going savage. I don't trust you anymore."

"And by 'you,' you mean . . . ?"

"I mean, not you, personally, but you chompers."

The badger nodded. "Let me ask you . . . these preds who attacked you . . . were they ever caught?"

Judy shook her head no. "They skulked off before anyone could get 'em."

"Well, then," said the badger, "that just proves that  _we_ —and I mean ' _we chompers_ '—aren't the ones who're attacking you."

"Huh?" asked Hopps incredulously. She was becoming more annoyed the more the creature spoke. "That's ridiculous—I saw them with my own eyes."

"There were police nearby?"

"Yeah, I had to go around a few places that were protesting, and some officers were trying to keep the peace. So?"

"And did they see what happened to you?"

Judy flumped back in her seat and tilted her head back as she tried to recall what happened. "Yeah," she replied finally, "they saw me. They saw the whole thing." An uncomfortable feeling was beginning to settle in her stomach. "But they didn't catch 'em."

She looked at the badger fiercely.

"I know what you're implying and it's  _not true_!"

The badger smiled. "And what am I implying?"

"That . . . uh . . . that they let them go? That the officers just let the creatures go?" finished Hopps nervously. She had a sense of what the badger was trying to say, but the thought was so incredible to her that she didn't want to believe it. And voicing the ridiculous notion felt stupid to her.

"More than that, Savage. Not only did they probably let them go, but the preds who attacked you were probably working for City Hall."

Judy looked puzzled for a moment. "There's no way . . ."

"Yes, there is. The truth is right in front of you, and you don't see it. You have no  _perception_! All the clues are right in front of you and you don't see it! You don't get it!"

"Then just  _tell me_  what I'm supposed to be looking for!" she shouted, drawing the attention of the other patrons.

"Is everything alright over here?" asked a waiter as he came over.

Judy said nothing for a moment before finally nodding. "Yeah, everything's fine," she said slowly.

The waiter eyed the badger suspiciously before slowly taking his leave.

The badger turned back to Judy as he left.

"Alright, little Savage, I'm gonna try to be patient with you since your 'friends' seem to have blinded you to the obvious: How many times were you attacked?"

Judy let out a slow breath. "Three times. Almost four times, but that time there was intervention."

"Who intervened that time?"

"The fourth time?" asked Judy. "The protestors did."

"Not the police who were always nearby?"

"I don't believe the police are in on it! If that was the point you were gonna try to make-"

"It wasn't—I just thought it could do to point it out. No, my real point is this: What happens to preds when we become agitated?"

Judy looked bemused. "I don't know. Nothing, I guess, except they get a citation?"

"Try again, Savage," replied the badger as she gestured to her collar.

Judy felt the wind leave her as sudden realisation slammed home. Back in Bunnyburrow,  _all_  predators were uncollared and she hadn't quite gotten used to the idea of predators facing consequences for merely being angry.

"In the times you were attacked, were the chompers who attacked you wearing collars?" asked the badger.

Judy nodded.

"And they weren't shocked?"

Judy shook her head slowly. "No. They weren't." She spoke softly as the implications finally set in.

"Four times?"

"Look, I get what you're implying, but there's no way that City Hall or anyone working there is-"

"And Otterton? How 'bout him?"

Judy looked at her, perplexed.

"Was Otterton wearing a collar?" asked the badger.

Judy looked down in thought as she recalled the shooting; the images of that night flooding back.

In her mind's eye, she could see Otterton lunging for her, see his mouth—his teeth . . . . But no collar!

Her eyes flashed back up to the badger's and saw her sporting a grim smile. The creature just shook her head softly.

"Who can take off an animal's collar?" she asked the rabbit.

Judy looked down at the table and shook her head in disbelief.

"Who has the ability to do that?" asked the badger again.

"Anyone . . . with a key card . . ." said the rabbit slowly.

"And who has them?"

Judy thought for a moment. "Anyone with privileged access. The mayor has to approve them herself."

The badger nodded. "I thought it was something like that. But then that means that someone set Otterton free on purpose."

"Or he stole a cop's key card," replied Hopps desperately.

"And why would a pred steal a key card?" asked the badger.

"To feel free!"

"Free to do what? Go savage, attack a bunch of mammals? Beat up his wife and kids before trying to kill a cop? Face it: the case is falling apart like a cheap motorcycle."

"There's got to be more to it!" insisted Judy as she felt things starting to fall apart in her mind.

"Does there? How about nothing more than the eradication of chompers in the city? Sure, okay, let's pretend for a second that Otterton was a fluke: Now, you're telling me that the  _hundreds_  of cases throughout the city of animals going feral all had their collars removed or malfunctioning, too?"

Judy rubbed her face with her paw. She couldn't believe it.

"I . . . I need to think about this."

"While you're doing that," said the badger, "I'd also like to suggest this: Consider whether you might have been set up to take down Otterton. Tricked into it." She watched the bunny very carefully. "Even supposing Otterton doped himself up with some drug just for kicks, someone would still've had to remove his collar. And I think you and I both know at this point that the most likely suspect is a police officer."

Judy covered her face with her paws. Tears came to her eyes as the awful realisation began to sink in on her: Her friends, the people on whom she'd been relying, who'd been supporting her through everything and all the trials she'd been facing—including the  _actual_  trial she was attending—had in fact been responsible for her situation. Those individuals, in whom she'd placed her safety and wellbeing, were trying to  _kill_  her? It beggared belief. But the obviousness that bypassed her completely as she sat shut up in her apartment for the last few weeks had been compounded by her isolation. And of course, the truth had been glossed over by the fact that her information had come from those with a vested interest in keeping her ignorant.

"They're setting you up, Judy," said the badger, using bunny's name for the first time. "Think about it. You  _know_  I'm telling you the truth!"

"No!" shouted Judy as her emotions got the best of her. She was bursting at the seams as the platitudes that had showered her—that she was a hero, that she wasn't guilty of anything, that the shooting had been a good one, that she was loved and appreciated by her superiors,  _that she was of value_ —were stripped away in an instant.

And there, sitting there in the centre of it all was the truth. The ugly, awful truth.

She was a murderer and a pawn. Nothing more than a patsy. An expendable little patsy who's reputation was being built up and fattened like a sheep before the shearer.

And she had played into it like the good lackey she was. So eager to please the higher ups to get some notice and some advancement in her life that she had sold herself and her values.

The people in the bar looked over at the bunny as she stood.

"You don't know anything about me!" she screamed. "I  _do_  have friends! They're  _not_  going to-!"

The badger looked around at all the patrons looking at them. The manager was approaching.

"Let's get out of here," said the badger as she stood up. "We're leaving," she said to the manager as she held up a paw.

The manager stopped in his tracks and nodded, giving the badger a wide berth as she passed by.

"Coming?" she asked lightly as she looked back at the seething bunny.

Hopps looked at her, positively shaken, before nodding jerkily and following her.

After paying the tab, the two of walked out into the cool night air.

"Down here," said the badger stiffly as she motioned down an alley.

Hopps followed her, and once they were down quite a ways, the badger stopped and turned to her.

"Okay, now you listen to me, Judy," she said, "you say you have friends? I don't think you do. You have the evidence right in front of you—all of it at  _least_  pointing to the fact that  _something's_  going on. I'll  _guarantee_  you that it's a setup and that they  _are_  planning to kill you. If you're so certain of your 'friends'' loyalty, tank the trial tomorrow. You're going to be questioned tomorrow, the jury's gonna go in and pretend to make a decision before they come out and declare you 'not guilty.' At least, that's what's supposed to happen, I'll bet. So this time, tank the trial. When the DA cross-examines you, tell them everything you told me—tell about your misgivings. Tell about Otterton not wearing a collar. Tell about how you didn't know you were firing a bullet gun. Say all of that in open court."

"What would that prove?" asked Judy, her tears having stopped for the moment.

"If you're right, nothing will happen to you. But if  _I'm_  right, it means that tomorrow night will be your last night alive."

Judy looked at her puzzled.

"When you die—when they kill you—they want you to die a hero so that they can have a martyr for their cause. They want to use your death to galvanise the prey demographic into kicking the rest of us out of the city and institute laws that discriminate against  _us_  even more," she said pressed. "They can't do that if you destroy your reputation in court."

"So?" said Judy, her voice rough.

"So, if you tank the trial tomorrow, they'll have to accelerate their plans and probably try to kill you tomorrow night in order to keep the jury from reaching a conviction. With you dead, the DA would have to drop the charges, and no one would know what you said in open court. And in the imagination of the public, it would appear to everyone that you had been killed by a savage in retaliation for the death of Otterton. City Hall would have its gilded heroine and martyr  _and_  a rationale for doing whatever the hell it wants."

Judy looked at the ground in deep thought. "You're wrong," she insisted tearfully.

"Then prove it. Either way, tank the trial."

"But if I do that, and you're scenario is that I'm going to die . . . what? Are you asking me to sign my own death certificate?"

The badger smiled. "You leave that side of things to me. I'm asking you to take what I think is a big risk—but if it turns out that I'm right, and I save your ass, I'm going to want something in return."

Judy looked at her bemused.

The badger looked at her seriously, now. "Your service."

"What . . . what do you . . . ?"

"I'm not going to share the details with you till I know you're onboard. Just trust me," she said quietly.

Judy shook her head from side to side slowly as she tried to think. She was too confused to truly ponder through all the details. Finally, she took a deep breath and looked up at the badger. At the end of the day, she was a cop, and she wanted to get to the truth no matter the cost.

"Do you promise to have my back? Even if things go bad?"

The badger nodded slowly. "You have my word on that."

"You know that I'm not switching sides, though, right? Not until I see the proof with my own eyes."

"I understand. Just tank the trial tomorrow."

"I get it," said Judy, laughing slightly with sadness in her voice. "You want me to incriminate myself. If you're wrong, then I could be facing real jail time—Hell, if even if you're right, and I survive what you say is gonna happen, I could still be facing jail time." She looked up at the badger. "What are you gonna do about that?"

The badger smirked. "You're not the only one capable of getting someone off the hook."

Another subversion of justice?! There was only so much Judy could take . . . .

"But like I said," continued the badger, "I'm gonna want something in return, either way. Don't worry: I'll let you know. What I want depends on the outcome of this experiment."

Judy nodded thoughtfully. "Alright. I'll do it."

"There's my noble rabbit. I need you to be strong for me, now, because I know I'm asking a lot from you."

The badger put out her paw, and Judy stared at it for a moment, taking notice of the badger's sharp claws. After another moment, Judy reached out and clasped her hand. They looked at each other and shook.

"This is scary," said Hopps to no one in particular.

"I know," said the badger grimly. "But trust me. I'll be keeping an eye on you."

Judy nodded, and after they both bade each other good evening and parted ways for the night, Judy went home to one of the best night's sleep she'd had in weeks.


	10. From Judy to "Hopps"

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Hopps continues her story, and we learn just how far the rabbit hole goes . . .

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Special Acknowledgement: First and foremost I would like to thank Soildier for his help in preparing this chapter.
> 
> Author's Note: I would like to thank all of my reviewers for your encouragement and your critiques! I greatly need it as I finish up this semester. A fan of my story also decided to make some fan art to go along with it. It was made by the wonderful gokhan16! If you enjoy it, please fave the original here: art/A-Different-Path-635772264
> 
> Let me know if you have any questions I could answer or if there's anything I've left unclear that I need clarify.
> 
> Everyone who has faved and followed me and/or my story, I would love to give you all a big thanks of appreciation of your support. You all have done so much to encourage me, and I can't tell you how grateful I am.
> 
> General Statement: As I stated before, I welcome any and all criticism pertaining to the story. If I miss a bit of grammar here or there let me know so I can fix it. If there's something that strikes you a mistake or an error let me know so that I can fix that, too; and yes, I do fix mistakes that are pointed out to me. Speaking from personal experience, nothing can take me out of a story more than a misspelled word or a grammatical mistake—especially if they're too common. Any other comments, questions, or concerns? Feel free to PM me.
> 
> Disclaimer: This is a work of fanfiction and has no claim whatsoever on the characters of Nick Wilde and Judy Hopps who are the sole property of The Walt Disney Company. In no way have I sought money, monetary value, nor profit of any kind for the writing of this story.
> 
> Cover Art:The cover art for this story has changed, as you may have noticed. It had been done by the wonderful Kaylii and depicts Hopps, wearing her hard-ass persona. The thanks also goes to Soildier who did the work of commissioning the art from her in the first place.

 

* * *

The gavel banged thrice, its sharp notes echoing over the startled murmurs in the gallery.

Hopps sat nervously in the witness box and noticed out of the corner of her eye the furtive looks that Swinton and Bellwether were giving each other as they sat in the gallery. They chatted to each other, their whispers inaudible in the din. Their chatter ceased momentarily as they both turned and eyed her with a dark expression that quickly melted into dull apathy.

Hopps felt her chest seize as anxiety gripped her.

There was no way that Honey could have been right about their intentions.

When Judy'd awoken that morning, things had seemed better than they had before—but the headway that Honey had made with her had all but vanished. Things always seemed worse at night, and Judy felt now that she'd let herself fall into the trap of being easily swayed.

Though she couldn't refute the badger's argument logically, she _had_ to dismiss it out of hand. Or at least, her gut feeling had been to do so. Her mind and heart wouldn't let her be persuaded in the face of what was nearly an ironclad case against City Hall and their intentions. She felt a kinship with both Swinton and Bellwether. And that kinship went a long way toward swaying her opinion more than anything a badger she'd only just met could say or do. The fact of the matter was that the badger had more to gain from the situation than anyone. Or at least, that's what Hopps told herself. In the back of her mind, she knew that if what the badger had said was right that, in reality, Bellwether and Swinton—and indeed, the whole ZPD—would fall the hardest. Preds were so low on the social ladder already that there wasn't that much lower for them to go, which meant that Honey's lack of personal risk had more to do with her having so little already, rather than because she had protected herself from the natural repercussions of her profession.

Honey had said that the last day of the trial would likely be today and that Bellwether and Swinton's supposed plans to kill her would take place sometime afterward—perhaps a week or a month following all this. Honey had refused to tell Judy what her plans were to get her out of being killed in the event that she was right. And now, her tanking the trial would supposedly lead to Swinton and Bellwether accelerating their plans? This whole thing was madness!

No! She refused to believe it. It simply couldn't be true. And the whole way to the courthouse, she'd been going over things again and again in her mind so that by the time she'd reached the steps of the building, she was again quite sure of herself: sure that there was no plot to kill her.

On the other hand . . .

. . . what _if_ Honey were right? Honey had told her that she would find a way out for her regardless of the outcome of this experiment, but she hated going through it all the same, and she decided, at last, to stick to the original plan.

The instant she'd spoken the condemning words on the stand, though—damning herself—she'd immediately regretted them. She was vacillating more than a seesaw. It seemed the more she examined things in the light of day, the more it seemed that she'd been swept up in the moment and carried away by depressing feelings. If there was one thing Judy hated, it was feeling as though she were being used and manipulated. Either way, her action here today would expose someone as a liar.

And now, here she was: facing the murmurs of both the jury and the gallery as they processed what she'd said only moments ago.

There had been testimony for an hour and fifteen minutes or so, which had been meant to bolster her character. She was the last speaker, and it was now up to her to tear it all down—all her lawyer's work.

Her attorney, Mr. Jack Savage, turned back to her, an odd expression on his face.

"I'm sorry, Ms. Hopps: Would you care to repeat what you just said to the court?" His expression conveyed annoyance and bemusement. His voice was tight.

"I said," she started slowly, "that when I shot Otterton I didn't know the weapon that I was carrying was a gun that used bullets. I wasn't even aware of the fact that we had those on the force." He stomach was in knots. She was beside herself as she continued. "Otterton was an innocent mammal, and I killed him. Needlessly. A dart could've easily taken him down."

Savage regarded her contemplatively for a moment before addressing the judge.

"Your Honour, permission to treat the witness as hostile?"

The judge, a hippo, gave a slight nod. "Permission granted." The hippo leant toward her and scrutinised her, carefully.

Savage turned back to her. "Ms. Hopps, earlier you swore in your testimony that you were the one who killed Otterton—a savage—for attacking you, is that correct?"

"It's true that I swore to it, but it was a lie. It's true that I killed him, but that wasn't my intention. It was my idea for me to relate the events of that evening the way that I did," she said as she cast a glance in the direction of Swinton and Bellwether who were giving her hard looks from the gallery. "They made me look better."

Savage turned to the judge, a scowl on his face. "Your Honour, permission to speak with my client for a moment."

"Objection!" called the tiger from the prosecution's side. The DA stood. "Your Honour, Counsel has had ample time to prepare his witness for testimony."

"He's right," said the hippo as he raised his eyebrows. " _You_ called the witness. Objection sustained."

Savage heaved a sigh and turned back to Hopps and thought for a moment.

"Ms. Hopps," began the rabbit as he seemed to be collecting himself, "on numerous occasions in the media, you discussed the circumstances of your attack! It's not only on the record, we have it in official court documents. You understand you could be charged with perjury if, as you're suggesting, you were lying, correct?"

"I understand," she began. She felt her heart sink in dread as she looked at the jury and said the fatal words. "I lied on the stand and in those interviews. I murdered Otterton."

Her words were slow and measured.

Never in her life did she think she would ever find herself in this position. Even saying the words sounded a bell in her head, and the full gravity of the situation sank in on her. The contrast between who she'd been when she'd started on the police force and who she was now was stark. Looking at herself, she could barely recognise the individual she'd become.

The city had been eating her alive! And what was worse, she realised, was that she had given this city permission to do so. Regardless of how things turned out at the end of all this, she was done with being a cop.

At her words, shouts of anger and howls of anguish erupted from the animals seated in the gallery, disrupting her thoughts.

Hopps could see Mrs. Otterton sobbing into a relative's chest. She felt her heart go out to the lutrine and bit her lip as she turned back to face her attorney.

The judge continued to bang his gavel in order to calm the crowd.

Savage only looked at Hopps and she shrank under his gaze.

When there was silence, Jack, seeming lost in thought, turned to the judge. "Your Honour, I would like to request a recess to confer with my client."

"Objection! Again, Your Honour," began the DA, a rather tall-looking tiger, "it was Mr. Savage who called this witness in the first place, and we have the right to cross-examine!"

"Objection sustained. Counsel will proceed with questioning or yield the floor."

Jack furrowed his brow and eyed Hopps angrily for a moment before turning back to the defence table.

"No further questions. Your witness," he murmured as he walked back to his table.

The tiger stood up and made his way over to Judy.

"Ms. Hopps," he started as he buttoned his suit, "you were the one who said that Otterton had gone savage. You swore to the fact that it was a matter of biology. Did you lie when you said those things?"

Hopps shook. She was starting to feel lightheaded. "Yes, I did. When I killed Mr. Otterton, I thought it'd sound better to say that he had gone savage."

"And had he?"

Hopps nodded as she thought to herself. "I don't know," she said at last. "Drug use had been suggested, but I don't know how true that is. All predators look savage to me," she lied. She hated doing it, but she had to say it. She had to make sure the jury saw her in the worst possible light. And admitting to having a strong bias was a sure fire way to make jury wonder whether her shooting Otterton might not indeed have been a matter of bias. That, combined with the fact that she was throwing doubt on her earlier certainty as to even whether Otterton had gone savage, was enough to tank her credibility as a witness.

"I'm sorry, are you suggesting," started the tiger as he began pacing slowly, "that you don't know whether Otterton had even gone savage?"

"All savages look dangerous."

The tiger screwed up his face and turned to look at her, truly and completely puzzled. She was _handing_ him the case.

"And," he started slowly, "you said you were unaware of the fact that you were aiming a gun filled with bullets?"

"That's right, I had no idea that the police department was using anything other than dart guns on criminals. Murdering Otterton was a mistake."

She forced herself to use the word murder in reference to what had happened. Honey had asked her to tank the trial and the only way to do that was to use the most evocative language she could to drive the point home.

"Ms. Hopps, are we to take your statements here today as an indication of wrongdoing on your part?"

He was leading her to see if she would follow. He had no idea what she was doing and he didn't care, really. But he was curious to see how far this bunny was willing to go. Never in his career did he ever think he'd be prosecuting an officer who'd sandbagged her own defence. It was nonsensical! And it was clear from his expression that Jack Savage had _not_ been in on the move.

Judy felt as though the anxiety were about to crush her chest but forced herself to go on. "I used excessive force to take down and kill a mammal my own size when a dart gun would have sufficed. It was wrong. I was terrified of Otterton when I saw him in that alley."

Yup, thought the tiger, he definitely didn't know what to make of her.

"No further questions, Ms. Hopps," he said as he stepped away. As he walked back to his table, he pondered whether there were anything else he needed to say or do.

He sat and looked down at his papers for a moment and shook his head before looking up at the judge.

"Your Honour, the prosecution rests. I move for closing statements."

He looked at Jack out of the corner of his eye. The rabbit's forehead was in his paw, and he seemed concerned when he looked up. Jack turned his head slightly when he noticed the tiger and gave him a slight nod.

Judy's mind was buzzing as she was given permission to step down. Regardless whether the jury decided in her favour, everything she had just said would become a matter of public record. If she lived that long, anyway.

-.-.-.-

_7:41 PM_

Judy sat in the bar waiting once again for the badger, her mind riddled with doubts and concerns she needed addressed.

The day had been long.

She had pointedly avoided going anywhere near the ZPD and had made her way from the courtroom hastily after the judge adjourned for the day. She'd practically run when both Swinton and Bellwether had called after her as she dashed out of the courthouse.

The scary thing for her now was that she felt so terribly small—if the badger were right, she now had two forces working against her in the city: both predators and prey would soon be united against her, though not on much else. The bastion of protection that City Hall had been for her would now most certainly crumble as it turned against her. What remained was seeing to what degree that was. No doubt they would feel betrayed after everything that they'd done for her. And how had she repaid them? By tanking her trial and most likely their reputations in this embarrassing stunt.

The more she thought about it and the real world ramifications of her actions, the more she realised how much she'd really stepped in it. No one was on her side now that she'd confessed to murder. What she had thought and felt when she'd met with the badger last night, along with the certainty it had provided, had evaporated in the arid reality that surrounded her in the wake of her actions. Never had she been less sure of herself—and the fact of the matter was that she had no idea whom she could trust.

There was so much of her future that seemed uncertain at this point. So now, she thought to herself between sips of cherry liqueur, there was nothing to do but wait.

She had been sitting in the bar for nearly half an hour after having gotten there late. It was nearly seven forty-seven, and still, the badger hadn't shown.

She could feel herself becoming more paranoid even as she drank, which usually relaxed her. But her thoughts were too confused and muddled, and she couldn't help the feeling of despondency that had crept over her throughout the rest of the day. Fears and anxieties assailed her from every angle, and she felt the need to get away from herself.

She had hoped that the badger would return that evening, and she couldn't help but feel worried about that to some extent, too. She wasn't sure what to think anymore about anything, but she had gotten used to the badger's company now, and she missed her in spite of her doubts. And then another part of her harboured a sneaking suspicion that the badger had skulked off and abandoned her—a thought from which she had hoped to be free.

It wasn't too much later when the bartender cut her off. With her small size and stature, the alcohol had touched her quickly. She didn't mind being cut off, but she did ask for water and for some more time to just sit by herself.

Her mind wrought itself in cycles the rest of the evening, and it seemed that only minutes later it was closing time. She was forced out of her seat with much grumbling, and she steadily made her way to the register. She had managed during the rest of her time waiting for the badger to reach a point where she was no longer sloppy: She was steady and felt only the barest hints of vertigo. She paid up and left, deciding to walk home.

She sighed to herself as she moved along the pavement. Checking the time on her phone, she saw it was nine o-three.

The normal city buzz which she would have expected seemed to be winding down early, and though there were animals on the streets nearby, things seemed much more subdued than she would have wanted—night in the city seemed pretty to her, and she didn't like the way the dazzling lights of downtown had become more and more subdued over the months she'd been there, as though the nightlife were dying. Of course, most prey animals would have been at home at this time of night. They were predisposed to it.

The way to her small apartment wasn't a terribly long walk for her, though many might've considered it so—but she was built for long distances.

Some twenty minutes later or so, she was nearing her home. The residential area she stayed in had none of the nightlife that brightened things nearer the commercial district she'd left, and it was here that an odd feeling of anxiety began to prickle the back of her neck. She didn't know what it was—perhaps it was the quiet that blanketed the area, or perhaps it was the darkness that stretched over the tenement buildings—but something about the starkness of the shadows had her heart sinking.

She came to a dead stop and looked at her apartment building across the way. She turned her gaze off to the side where an alley lay, stretching on into the darkness.

There was something about this feeling that was terribly familiar, and it took her a moment before she was able to suss out what that was.

_Otterton!_

The name rang in her mind as the jigsaw of sensory information came together before her, forming a complete picture in her mind:

This is how it was right before she'd encountered Otterton. Or so it seemed. It was the same prickling at the back of her neck, the same sharp contrast between light and dark, the same childlike fear of the shadows and the unknown: it was all coming back to her so vividly, and she had no idea why.

Scratch that—she _knew_ why.

She was being watched.

Somehow, at some point, while she'd been mindlessly walking in her semi-sober state, she'd stepped into a trap. Everything was setting her on edge, every sound! She heard a door slam somewhere, heard a window close, heard someone moaning in the alley next to her.

She honed her sharpened ears as she listened for some telltale whisper that would hint at what was about to happen.

She suddenly willed herself to put the breaks on the rabbit trail her thoughts had taken as she made to logic her way through the mess of sensations: Someone was watching her, she knew that. She also couldn't help but be reminded of the badger's warning that animals were now out to kill her.

What had seemed so clearly ridiculous to her earlier in the courtroom in the light of day now seemed entirely plausible again. Was she really so easily manipulated that a simple change of light and dark could move her thoughts between two different ideas? Yes, she realised. It was a matter of instinct. Millions of years of evolution had primed her to think this way—primed her to be more aware at night and even afraid of it.

On the other hand, she'd walked these streets hundreds of times at night since arriving in this city, and she had _never_ felt as she did either now or in that alley with Otterton. Her instincts, she reasoned, had to be dead on—Not only was something following her and watching her, it was something sinister, too. It had to be—because she had never felt this way with the badger. Even on the first night when Honey—such a potentially formidable mammal—approached her from behind, she hadn't felt as she did, now.

No, it wasn't the badger who was following her.

Listening carefully, she could hear nothing from any direction no matter how she twitched her ears. Only silence.

She turned her head to look down the alley and saw a drunken wolf slump against the wall and sink down. She sighed to herself totally unfazed. She got out her phone and made to call the ZPD—someone else for the drunk-tank, she thought. That's when her heart froze.

Her head shot back up as she looked down the alley and heard . . . nothing. Not even the sound of the wolf's breathing. She took a shuddering breath as she slowly neared.

Every zombie and horror movie she'd ever seen screamed at her that this was a bad move. But she was a cop, damnit! She had to do something, didn't she?

She was about to step into the alley when she suddenly stopped just before crossing the line. _Nothing_ about this seemed right. Her mind was shrieking at her that something was wrong with this whole picture. Instincts were blaring messages of fear and anxiety, ratcheting up her adrenaline levels. She stood there on the edge of the alley's entrance and took a step back. Then another.

She had to get home. She had to get home, now!

Just as she made to turn she was suddenly slammed with something on the back of her head, the force of the blow knocking her into the narrow alley. She was kicked and felt someone pick her up and throw her further into the alley.

She skidded painfully on pieces of gravel and shards of broken glass, and she cried out loudly. She made to get up but was slammed again across the back, hard, and she fell to the ground moaning brokenly and gasping for air.

On the outskirts of her hearing, she heard a movement, and then she saw motion out of the corner of her eye. The presumably drunken wolf was now looking at her. Her eyes moved to his maw in time to see him flash his teeth and growl at her, his dark eyes somehow peering out at her from the darkness.

She tried to move to a standing position but couldn't, only managing to weakly bring herself up on her arms, deep red blood coursing down her right arm as the cuts there let flow a good amount of it. She slowly pushed herself into a sitting position while shaking with dizziness and slumped against the side of the alley wall, her world spinning, her head feeling heavy as she sat there. She watched in dull fear as the two figures towered over her.

The rabbit tried to think quickly about anything she could do, but everything seemed so sluggish, and her head was positively throbbing.

She forced her eyes opened, determined to do something about her situation.

"Not so fearless without your gun now, are you?" asked the one who'd ambushed her.

She heard them both growling oddly and tried to move away as the other wolf—the one who'd been crouching only moments before—joined his partner. Her jeans slid on the gravel and crunched beneath her as the fabric grated on the asphalt.

She'd only managed to slide a couple of inches when the ambusher seized her, yanking her to a standing position as he dragged her along further into the alley. The tops of her feet dragged painfully on the pavement as she was forced along at a pace she couldn't keep up with. She cried out and tried to push her attacker away but she was no match for him at all.

Things seemed to be getting darker and darker as they left the world of light behind them, and before she knew it, she felt surrounded by pitch blackness.

She was thrown to the ground hard. The movement surprised her, and she wasn't able to catch herself on her arms before her face slammed into loose bits of dirt. She gasped as she was flipped over and saw one of them draw a knife.

She looked up at the silver blade as it glittered with the light from the opening of the alley. The knife was the only source of light she could reliably pinpoint, and it glimmered like a star in the night sky. And for a moment, she thought it was almost poetic—never had she thought that death could look so beautiful.

"You wanna do the honours, or shall I?" she heard one of the two ask.

"I'll do it. I know how to make'em scream."

Not that she felt she was capable of screaming.

She felt the one with the knife pin her down as he handed off the shimmering blade to his partner. The wolf was large and easily held down her arms and legs and made to cover her mouth. She jerked her head and tried to move away but was caught as his paw descended over her face.

"Shit, we gotta hurry this along!" he shouted as, from a corner of her mind, she heard someone dashing down the alley.

Before anything else could be said, the wolf pinning her was suddenly shoved off her so forcefully that the bunny was pulled along in his wake. Judy was in shock as she watched while lying on her side what seemed to be a small creature throwing the wolves to the ground, growling and hissing and slashing and cutting with a terrifying mixture of blood, claws, teeth and fury.

She saw the smaller creature throw the wolf holding the knife to the ground and slash at him with its claws, letting out a cry of feral fury as it did so before turning to the other wolf on all fours as he tried to recuperate from his initial blow.

Judy saw the wolf pull out a gun as he stood, and he aimed it. In a movement so quick she almost didn't see it, she saw the small shadow leap at the canine a moment before the silenced gun went off. The creature delivered a blow to the throat, and he gasped for a moment before the smaller shadow got onto his back and seemed to be violently choking him from behind, leveraging all its strength at the wolf's thick neck to take it down.

The wolf tried slamming against the wall several times to get the smaller creature off him to no avail. At last, he sank to his knees as the lack of oxygen got to him. His blood was pounding through his skull as his world began to sway and fade. The creature on his back seemed to tighten its hold, and Judy heard a rattle come from the wolf's throat before collapsing face forward into the gravel.

The small shadow disengaged and moved away, gasping as it came toward the fallen rabbit.

Facing the opening to the alley and the light that poured from it, the creature now became slightly visible in the dim glow. Judy focused for a moment as the figure neared her, and by and by she was able to make out the features of someone she knew— _Honey!_

The badger knelt beside her, covered in blood, and helped Judy into a sitting position.

Hopps was groggy and incoherent as she tried to speak. The badger hushed the rabbit and rubbed her arms in an attempt to get feeling back into her as Honey tried to banish the numbness that the adrenaline had affected in Judy. After a few moments, the rabbit became more aware of her situation and finally felt capable of speech.

"Wh-where were you earlier . . . ?"

Honey eyed the bunny, supremely apologetic. "I'm so sorry, I didn't mean for this to happen. I was caught up in something that I didn't think was gonna take as long as it did."

Judy suddenly became angry but was totally unable to express it in anything save her expression and her tone. "They were preds. You were wrong," she said slowly, indicating the two wolves who'd attacked her.

Honey looked at her puzzled for a moment. "What?"

"You said it was City Hall that was after me, not preds, but here we are. I trashed my reputation and betrayed my friends and for what?"

Honey frowned at her. "We need to leave this alley soon. Tell me when you feel okay enough to walk."

They waited for a few minutes, saying nothing before Judy finally started to get up with Honey quickly rushing to help her. To her surprise, the badger was leading her over to one of the fallen wolves. As they went over, Honey reached down and picked up the blade that had been dropped and continued over to him.

"What are you doing?!" shrieked Judy when Honey slashed down the creature's torso. Honey got down on all fours, and Judy stood back and watched in horror and disgust as the badger seemed to be gutting the wolf. She closed her eyes tightly and resisted the urge to scream. She jumped when she felt the badger's paw on her again.

"Open your eyes," she heard.

This was positively unreal. Judy had no idea how she'd take to see the poor creature with his guts spilled on the pavement.

"Open them!" demanded the badger.

Judy jumped but opened her eyes to see the ho- . . . to see a _sheep_? Judy looked at the badger curiously as Honey reached into the "wolf's" mouth and withdrew a set of false teeth.

"His name's Woolter," said the badger dully as she looked at Hopps. "He's one of Bellwether's henchmen." Honey held up what appeared to be a girdle. "He was tightening his wool with this and then putting in a set of false teeth and a pretty convincing mask. Same goes for him," she continued as she aimed the blade at the other wolf. Hopps watched in stunned curiosity as Honey walked over to the wolf and did the same to him, cutting through the fabric of his clothes to reveal what was truly there beneath. The instant the girdle was slashed, his wool immediately expanded, much to the bunny's surprise.

Judy was shocked and stunned for a moment before the implications set in. Honey turned toward her soberly.

"We need to get you home and talk about what happens next."

She watched as Honey withdrew a TAME collar from her back pocket and placed it 'round her neck. Honey seemed to take a moment to herself, sighing in subdued annoyance, before clasping the collar, its green light switching on.

"What about _them_?" asked Judy as she motioned to the creatures.

Honey shrugged. "They'll live. Which is more than what Otterton got."

Judy nodded as Honey took her arm and led her from the alley.

-.-.-.-

Hopps looked up from her paws as Honey set a cup of mint tea before her.

"I got you an ice pack for the back of your head," said Honey as she sat down next to her.

Judy nodded slowly as the badger placed the pack on the table.

For a moment, Judy did nothing save to look at the pack before taking it gingerly and applying it to the back of her head. She let out a sigh and tried not to think about the events that had transpired not fifteen minutes ago.

After arriving at the apartment, the badger had found some gauze in a first aid kit Judy had next to her bed. The badger had carefully taken the time to remove the bunny's pink floral pattern shirt and bind her arm after swabbing and disinfecting her wounds. Though she felt some concern at being topless, the badger's professionalism went a long way toward making her more comfortable. A few moments later, the badger had gone into Judy's drawers and taken out another shirt for her to wear of dark blue paisley.

And now here they both were, sitting in silence as they each tried to ponder their next steps.

After a few moments had passed, the rabbit looked up at the badger who was eyeing her quietly.

There was no good way to say it, thought the badger, and no good way to break the ice, so she may as well come right out and say it.

"My price," she began out of nowhere as the bunny looked right back at her, "is that you work for me as a spy in the ZPD."

Judy regarded her askance. "What?"

"I want you to go back to your job and spy for me."

Judy fumed and felt her heartbeat in her head, throbbing dully and painfully as her anger rose.

"I'm not going back there; not after this. I can handle a lot of things but I'm just not ready fo-"

"I told you that I wanted something in return for the information that I was giving and for saving your life: Your service. Well, this is how I want that service repaid," said the badger as she sat back.

"Even if I wanted to-" shouted Hopps before sitting back and groaning as her aching head protested her sudden movements. She hissed slightly and removed the pack she'd been holding to her head before reaching down to take a sip of the tea before looking back up at the badger. "Even if I wanted to," she bit out, though much more calmly, "you just had me tank my reputation and friendship with the two animals who might have given me the in."

"Use the attack to your advantage," said Honey.

Judy eyed her carefully and waited for her to continue.

"What I want you to do," began the badger, "is to go to Swinton and Bellwether and tell them that you were manipulated. Use the attack as a jumping off point. Say that different chompers and savages had been threatening to kill you unless you changed your testimony. Tell them that you were afraid for your life, that you were terrified, and that that's why you changed your statements."

"And tell them that I changed my mind after being attacked?"

"Exactly," said Honey as she smiled. "Lay it on thick. Tell them everything you can to convince them that you hate preds, convince them that you share their sympathies and that you wanna see preds banished from the city. You can do that much, can't you?"

Hopps nodded. She would be a cop again. She would have some semblance of her reputation back. And, moreover, she would be able to go back to making the world a better place, just like she'd always wanted, even though things weren't exactly as she'd planned them.

"What's the next step?" asked Judy as she brought the pack up to the back of her head.

"Get ahold of Swinton or Bellwether as soon as you can. They're bound to figure out within the hour that you're not dead. You need to get ahold of them soon. Tonight. Before they even have a chance to send out others after you. This is the first place they're going to look. On the phone with them, you need to tell them about the attack. You need to make it clear to them that you were threatened, and you need to make it clear to them that you're willing to play whatever political game they want you to play in order to get the preds out of the city."

Judy took out her phone and looked at it before turning her gaze back to the badger. "Now?"

"Yeah, now. I'll be right here," said the badger reassuringly.

Judy averted her eyes, finding the sight of blood around Honey's jaws disconcerting.

Honey had tried to wash off as much blood as she could but still found the white under her mouth slightly stained. She could get the rest of it out later; right now, she had to wait and make sure Judy was alright during the call.

As Honey looked at the bunny sitting across from her, she couldn't help the pang of guilt she felt at the sight of the beaten lupine. She'd been delayed by the meetings she'd had that day—one with the district attorney about possibly withdrawing the charges (which he couldn't do) and low balling any other questions he had for her during the next trial day (which he said he _could_ do, when he heard the badger's full explanation), and another with Lionheart about getting him to tone down his rhetoric when it came to prosecuting Hopps. Honey needed both the DA and Lionheart on her side, since they both wielded so much power in the city, and when she'd told them of her designs for Hopps, they agreed.

Now, as Honey sat looking at the bunny across the small table in this dingy apartment, she couldn't help but wonder if she'd made a mistake about her. Judy was so small and seemed to be trying so hard to do everything on the up and up that it just seemed against this bunny's nature to have to hide herself in such a deep way. She pondered these things as she watched her new employee make the call.

After a few seconds, the badger heard someone on the other end of the line.

"Yes, hello, Chief Swinton?" started the bunny. "Yes it's me, Hopps," she said as she looked the badger. Honey raised her eyebrows at her and the bunny continued.

"Look," she said, doing her best to sound broken and despondent, which wasn't too far from the truth, "we need to talk." She paused for a moment. "Uh . . . in person?" said the bunny as she looked at the badger.

Honey's eyes widened, and she shook her head vehemently as she mouthed the words in a hoarse whisper, "No, no, no!"

Hopps nodded, "Uh . . . actually, there's something that's been bothering me, Chief," said the bunny as the badger nodded approvingly. "The thing is that," and here the bunny let the sound of crying enter her voice, "that the preds here have been threatening me. I got a letter," lied the bunny, "saying that unless I withdrew all of my previous statements that they would find me and kill me!"

The badger nodded, smiled, and gave her a thumbs up.

"And now," the bunny went on, sobbing, "these goons tried to ambush me in an alley!" Her voice was warbling and frail-sounding. "I _hate_ the savages in this city!" she said sharply. "We need to get rid of them and send them someplace else. Bomb the hell out of them or whatever, just get them away from here!"

 _'Maybe try toning it down just a bit,'_ thought Honey as she gave Judy a quizzical look.

There was another pause and the rabbit nodded, giving the badger a thumbs up.

After a few moments of silence—and after Judy bade Swinton good night—the badger heard the faint sound of Swinton hanging up.

The bunny looked back to the badger and smirked slightly. "I think it worked."

The badger nodded. "We'll know for sure if no one attacks you from here on out."

The bunny slumped down and sighed. "Now I just have one more day in court."

"Probably a few more days," replied the badger. "You need to be questioned again so you can retract your earlier statements in front of the jury and tell them why you switched your testimony. Saying you were threatened was perfect—you really knew how to sell it."

Judy held the icepack back up to her head and sighed as she tried to relax.

-.-.-.-

The next few weeks were positively nerve-racking for Judy, but thankfully, Honey had been there for her nearly every step of the way.

All attacks on her, even in crowded areas crawling with predators and protesters, had ceased completely in the days following several meetings Judy'd had with both Bellwether and Swinton. There wasn't any doubt now—at least to her way of thinking—that they had been behind the attacks on her in some way and had called them off. She'd been terrified of being found out in her subsequent dealings with them, though Honey had advised that she use her fear of City Hall to make her mock dislike of predators seem even more real—even suggesting that the bunny go so far as saying that she had been traumatised. "After all," the badger had told her, "the best lies contain a kernel of truth."

Honey did her best in the time they had before Judy was due to start back on the force to give her a crash course in spying. Judy was already well-trained in self-defence and martial arts already, so mostly Honey came at night when she would be least noticed by a prey animal staying out late. Typically, she had the bunny meet her in secluded areas where she could set up mock scenarios the bunny might find herself in.

The badger warned her that animals in the clutches of fear were psychologically easy to control. Breaking an individual down could be easy if done correctly. The badger told her these things so that Judy could learn not to fall for those traps that either Bellwether or Swinton or even Honey herself might set for her. And of course, the bunny _had_ fallen for those traps already, and it had been hell to break out of them.

The fear that Judy felt was genuine in the face of what she was learning about herself and the individuals around her. Honey took the time to explain to her that City Hall had caught Judy at a moment of supreme weakness; and that, under normal circumstances, Judy might not have behaved as she had in the weeks after the shooting.

Honey saw her new comrade as an asset and an investment, and over the following weeks, using Judy's meetings with general officials in the municipal district as a final training ground, worked to cultivate within the bunny a will of iron. She did her best to mentally prepare the bunny in every way she could in the art of espionage. She taught the bunny to hold back her emotions and bottle them tightly in the midst of stressful situations, and found her effort rewarded after only a short time when, in the courtroom, a week following the attack, her protégé successfully answered all the difficult questions that were being put to her and managed to maintain a successful façade of innocence. She had become an actress.

The mostly-prey jury was finished deliberating within the hour and returned a verdict of not guilty. Not everyone was pleased, and although the tiny bunny knew that both the DA and Lionheart were in on the game, she nevertheless felt a pang of guilt when she heard both of them come out on the news and chat show circuits to criticise and lambast her.

Honey didn't relish the occasional looks she sometimes caught in her student when the world began to lay heavily on her. Hopps was a true believer and a genuine animal—it was heartbreaking to see the bunny slowly become part of a brazen world: A world pretending to be gold when it was worth so much less. And yet, whenever the badger asked her about these things, the bunny always replied with the same words: "Things can be better, the world can be better, and I wanna be there to help it."

It wasn't long after the trial that she was set to start back at the ZPD. Honey had prepared her as best as she could, though she knew the way was going to be much harder from here on out, and the badger was certain that she had done the best she could in the time given.

And now, here Judy stood in front of the ZPD, the structure seemingly more imposing than it was when she had first arrived. Judy put on her game face as she walked up to the doors, dressed in full uniform, her hat under her right arm. Regular.

She stopped to check the time on her phone. It was ten o'clock on the dot, and she was due for a meeting. She took a deep breath and let it out before going right up to the building.

As she strode through the doors, she noticed many of her fellow officers turn toward her and look on in silence for a moment before they began to clap for her.

"Welcome back, Hopps!" "Welcome back!" came the shouts that followed.

Hopps shrank back slightly under the attention but maintained a careful posture. She came forward.

"Thanks, guys! Nice to be back!" she called as she waved. Slowly, they all turned back to what they were doing, and unintelligible chatter again filled the airways.

Judy let out a sigh and walked up to the front desk, spying the doe and feeling a wave of guilt wash over her as she did.

"Cevilla," she said as she came up, "any messages from the chief?" she asked. She was expecting something from the Swinton on where they were to meet—this wasn't a normal work day: the chief had spoken to her earlier in the week saying that she had a special assignment for her first day back.

The doe looked down at her with a cross expression that quickly melted away.

"Nothing," said Cevilla as she picked up a magazine and began pretending to read it.

"Really? Nothing?" asked Hopps in disbelief.

"You missed the morning briefing, and that's your fault," said the doe as she looked at the pages.

"It's my fault that I missed it because Swinton asked me to come in later for a special assignment. Did she leave anything with you? A message? A meeting time?"

Cevilla continued staring at the periodical, saying nothing.

Judy raised her eyebrows in surprise and started looking around before her eyes happened to land on the chief walking over toward them.

"Hopps!" said the chief as she reached her. The pig was positively beaming as she came over.

"Yes? Hello, Chief!" said the bunny as the pig walked toward her.

"Did Cevilla give you my message?"

Hopps straightened her uniform. "No, she didn't," she said as she turned toward the deer.

Swinton looked at Cevilla. "Wow, Shit for Brains, I didn't realise that your duties included loafing around and lying. Do it again and we'll see how quickly you end up suspended without pay."

Cevilla nodded stiffly under the chief's look before the pig turned back to the bunny at her side.

"Would you care to follow me to my office?" asked the pig.

Judy nodded and made to follow as the chief led on.

They chatted as they went, mostly about nothing, and Judy did her best to quell the thoughts that screamed to her about what a dangerous animal this pig really was. She had never gotten over the sense of betrayal and disappointment that she'd felt following the meetings she'd had with both the chief and Bellwether. Bogo had been noticeably absent since, while Swinton had been preoccupying herself with Judy and the trial, he'd been taking on more and more responsibility.

Her lack of interaction with him had made it difficult for her to get a read on him. He seemed likely to be amenable to her—especially after she'd worked so hard for the city, but that remained to be seen as time went on.

Swinton closed the door to her office as Hopps stepped in. The pig motioned for her to have a seat.

"Just a second," said the chief absently as she walked around her desk and took her place. Once she was situated, she folded her paws on her desk and sat forward.

"I wanted to meet with you for a particular reason," began the pig. Swinton's eyes regarded the bunny dully with what Judy thought might be a small hint of guile.

 _'What's she thinking?'_ she wondered as she looked at the chief.

"That is," continued Swinton, "to tell you that things are about to be shaken up here in the city and in the department. After this term, Mayor Bellwether is going to be stepping down. And hopefully, I will be replacing her when that happens."

Judy's eyes widened at the news. " _You're_ gonna be mayor? I didn't even know you were planning to run. Who's gonna be chief, then?"

"Bogo, if he accepts. He already does all the administrative work around here, anyway. Yaguarete will probably be taking his place as deputy. That's the one thing about Bogo that makes me nervous—he and that cat of his are thick as thieves."

Judy rolled her eyes. "I wouldn't have pegged him for a prey lover."

The pig nodded sagely. "They've been friends for a while. Dunno how the hell that happened." The pig sighed. "But anyway, as I was saying—Bogo's gonna be the new chief which moves Yaguarete up to deputy, which means that there's going to be an opening for a new sergeant's position. I think _you_ would fit the job perfectly."

Judy raised her eyebrows. "Me?"

"Yeah. Which brings us to the main reason why I called you in early: I need you to oversee something on Searton."

Judy raised an eyebrow. Searton was a prison situated on an island off the south-eastern side of the Zootopian peninsula. She had no idea what they'd want with her there.

"You'll be filling in for someone while they're being trained."

Judy nodded. "Am I leaving to do that now?" she asked.

"In a few minutes. Your shift doesn't end till ten tonight."

"Long hours," said Judy as she eyed the pig, her mood tail-spinning as she contemplated the long shift.

"Long, maybe. But think of this . . ." trailed the pig as she tried to think of the right word. She smiled grimly to herself, and Judy was instantly on edge but kept herself in check, ". . . as an initiation. Prove yourself to me. You really had me worried last month when you caved to pressure on the job. I was really beginning to doubt that we were friends at all."

 _'You're not the only one,'_ thought Judy.

She held in a scoff. Instead, Hopps forced herself to smile unassumingly. "Of course we're friends." She turned her head and looked off to her right. "I was just so scared of the preds in the city. It seemed like everywhere I went I was being attacked and really hurt."

"I know. Which is in large part why I designed the training at the prison especially for you. We're a bit overcrowded there, and we need help releasing some of them."

"Transferring them?" asked Judy. "Where?"

"That's not your concern. Just . . . just know that you'll be feeling _much_ better by the end of it. And I hope it'll also help me to get to know you a little bit better."

Swinton smiled, and it was all Judy could do to keep herself from shuddering. The pig was being too cryptic, and she hated the idea of walking into something she didn't fully understand. Honey had warned her that those situations were the most dangerous since she'd have little control over her surroundings.

She nodded, and the pig continued, giving her the details of her assignment. It was only meant to be a one day transfer to see how well she fit in with the team, the pig told her. She wasn't entirely sure she liked the sound of that. Again, she tamped down the feeling and listened patiently as she was given her assignment.

After bidding farewell, Hopps left the office and headed downstairs where she walked past Cevilla wordlessly. The bunny had a long drive ahead of her and she wanted to set out as quickly as possible.

She took her assigned car and made a straight shot south toward the coast. The traffic was heavy but got lighter as she headed toward the outskirts of the savannah district.

She arrove at a port specially designated for the transport of prisoners and guards to Searton.

Access was restricted, and as she got onboard she couldn't help but notice that no other animals were at the dock, as though no one were visiting the prison.

The island rested in the south-eastern waters off the coast. It would have been a pleasant spot if its name hadn't come to be synonymous with incarceration.

Judy sighed as she parked the patrol car and walked up to the clearance gate.

The fifteen-minute drive had given her time to think. She didn't trust the chief nor did she trust her intentions. She knew that this was going to be a loyalty test, and she knew that it was going to be tough. She also took the time to shore up her resolve and to bolster her mental barriers against whatever was coming her way. What would the test of loyalty involve? Killing someone to prove that she wasn't a pred sympathiser?

She bit the inside of her cheek but forced herself to show no outward sign of distress. She was trying her hardest to keep her emotions in check. Would she be able to hold up if she had to kill someone? Probably not. But they weren't likely to have her kill anyone, anyway, she reasoned. Her shooting of Otterton had ostensively been a product of a confluence of circumstances. Police didn't just go around shooting mammals for no reason.

As the ferry brought her across the waters, she ran through her drills once again, preparing herself as well as she could for whatever she was going to meet inside the prison. As the boat reached the landing dock, she couldn't help but feel grateful for the bright day. It went a long way toward clearing her thoughts and opening her mind to more positive emotions.

She was led inside by a guard who, when she got to the door, had her present her identification and paw prints. She stepped into the grey building and shivered at the relative cold that seemed to greet her in contrast to the warmth she'd felt outside.

The walls were painted white. Florescent lights blared from the ceiling and hummed as she walked in. Gates were locked and unlocked behind her, and she pinned her ears back as they clanged loudly, the sound reverberating off the walls and down the corridors as she was led on.

The guard, a yak, led her into an office area filled with cubicles and handed her an itinerary. It seemed mostly to consist of guard times and duties, but a few curious blocks of time stood out.

The times twelve and one, three and four, and six and seven were all marked with a small c; eleven, three, and six had the word "selection" written next to them. And lastly, the hours nine and ten were marked off with the word "report."

She looked up at the guard who'd led her.

"Just one quick question," she said, "what do these mean?" she asked, pointing to the letters. "I don't get it."

"Well, it's a cull," he replied, smiling.

"Cull?" She'd never heard of it.

"Yeah. You ever done one?"

Judy looked up at him curiously. "You mean transfers? I've seen those before and I think I can do it. I'm familiar with the procedure, anyway."

The yak laughed. "No, no, no! You're thinking of a totally different thing. Let's see . . ." he trailed off as he looked at his chart. "Looks like you're on to be part of the guard crew. On the sad side, that means that you're also part of the cleanup crew. Pretty sure you'll do fine there with the smaller ones."

Judy looked up at him oddly as he stopped talking. She had no idea what he was on about.

"What-"

"Oh!" started the yak, "says here that Swinton wanted your first time to be a surprise. We'll get you set up, then. Says here they got you working till ten, but since you're part of the guard crew, you could probably do all your reports in between rounds and then knock off at eight or whenever your last reports are done; does that sound good?"

Judy nodded. Cutting an eleven-hour shift to a nine-hour shift sounded a lot better to her ears.

The officer left her in the office area after showing her to her temporary station. She settled in and relaxed as she waited for her shift to start.

When she reported to the front only ten minutes later, she was told to her annoyance that she wouldn't be needed until twelve. She gave them a sidelong look but walked back to the office.

Something wasn't right here. It wasn't normal to be so lax about a schedule. The rules seemed oddly loose, here, and it unnerved her to a large degree. Nevertheless, she forced herself to show no outward sign of discomfort and merely sat down at her station and started reading on her phone to pass the time.

When it was ten-till, she stretched and put away her phone. She sighed and made her way to the front again, hoping she wouldn't be put off for a second time, and waited as the attendant gave her a badge. She smiled at the ram as he handed it to her and asked him where she was supposed to go. He handed her a map with her position marked. She was assigned to a corner of what appeared to be an open yard where, she assumed, prisoners could exercise.

Searton was a large, five-story facility that housed six hundred and twenty-four prisoners. It had been built specifically to house inmates from the size of bunnies to the size of tigers—anything larger or heftier or smaller, such as bears or elephants or mice, were sent elsewhere.

Judy expected to see equipment meant for nearly every kind of animal when she stepped into the activity area but was surprised to find it barren. She could see marks in the concrete where the equipment had been but had been rather recently removed.

There was something about this whole situation that didn't feel right. For one thing, the concrete was something—she felt—that really shouldn't have been there. It got too hot in the summer for animal's foot pads—even with foot guards as she was wearing. Moreover, she didn't really get why this guard duty was met out in two-hour increments with a break in-between for a selection, during which time she had been offered the chance to write up her reports.

Reports of what? What exactly was this?

She was followed by other guards as she went out. The open air was refreshing after having been sitting in such a small room with nothing to do but read, play games, and browse Furbook.

She took a deep breath of fresh air and could nose the sweet scent of grass that lay beyond the walls of the enclosure. She looked around and noticed that the space was rather large. Judy looked around to take its measure, seeing how spacious it was. She guessed that it was roughly an acre—a little smaller than the size of a football field without the end zones.

She walked down the length of the yard and took her spot against the farthest wall opposite the prison in the north-eastern corner. Minutes later, she saw a bison walking up to her. He smiled down at her as he reached her.

"I heard this was your first time doing guard duty," he said.

"Yeah, it is," she replied, mentally wondering at the easy tone he took with her. "Do you know me?" she asked, unable to keep herself from voicing the question.

"Everyone here knows you, Little One," he said as he chuckled. "Of course we know you. You're the tiny bunny who took down the big pred. It's thanks to you we have this program at all!" he finished.

"What program?" she asked somewhat nervously.

"Oh yeah! Jobim told me that you were new to this! I almost forgot that it was supposed to be a surprise. The program is called 'Catch and Release.'"

Hopps furrowed her brow as she looked up at him.

She suddenly gasped as she saw something odd behind the bison. As quickly as it was there it had disappeared, but she would never forget the sense of dread, fear, and horror that shocked her when she spied it: The prison edifice stood five stories high—on the third floor was a balcony which she assumed must only have belonged to the overseer of the facility, but what she had seen there only moments ago was unrecognisable and inexplicable.

While she'd been looking up at the tall bison, she'd also had that balcony sitting, out of focus, in the background of her vision. When she'd seen the movement behind the mammal she'd glanced for only a moment to glimpse shocking and oddly terrifying daemon. It had faded and disappeared quickly, but she was still stuck with the awful sensation.

She did her best to recover herself, managing to tamp down her emotions in seconds and had successfully managed to keep them from showing in her expression.

The bison took his spot next to her as ten armed guards holding what appeared to be darting rifles walked into the yard flanked by forty more. As they drew near Judy at the far wall, she made sure to look around at the other guards who were posted a yard apart.

The forty who were flanking the armed group were made up of bison, water buffalo, and razorback hogs split into two groups of twenty and stood on either side of the gunmen.

The ten armed animals fanned out and formed a straight line facing the back wall of the yard, standing twelve feet away from it.

Everyone turned and faced forward, as did Judy, when a decorated pig stepped out into the yard from the prison and made the long walk down to the end, toward them. His heels clicked on the concrete with a sharp, irritating tap that echoed through the walls. The more she watched him, and the more his face came into focus, the more she hated him. It was just a natural impulse, and she allowed the sensation to flow through her while keeping it in check.

She reminded herself of everything that Honey had taught her and stood firm in her resolve that there wasn't anything that she couldn't handle—no storm she couldn't weather.

Judy turned out and stood at attention as the decorated—and clearly important animal—came to a stop in front of the assembly. He stood silently for a moment before launching into a speech. He went on and on about the glory of the journey they were about to embark on. The animals had made it seem as though this program had been in effect for a while but for whatever reason, this seemed to be a new beginning from how he made it seem. To that, Judy couldn't help but wonder what the speech was for.

At last, the pig made his closing remarks. Everyone applauded, and so did she so as not to stand out by omission.

"So," began the pig commander, "let's begin before the day gets any hotter. I'm sure we all hope to be done with this in short order."

Hopps watched as the gates of the prison opposite her opened and a line of prisoners were led out—all of them predators, she noticed. She counted them and saw that there were ten.

It was dead silent as the shackles around their feet clanked. She was keenly aware of the swish of their orange jumpsuits. Every sound they made as they walked along seemed to reverberate in her ears, and it set her on edge as she bit the inside of her lips to keep from showing any sign of discomfort. She was confused at what she was seeing and had no idea what was going on.

Slowly, the chain of prisoners marched toward and finally reached them. They lined up along the wall and turned to face the guards.

Judy quirked an eyebrow as it looked as though they were about to have their picture taken. Each of the ten guards stood across from each prisoner.

The guards turned to face the predators who stood against the wall, and Judy noticed that nearly all of them were trembling and sniffing while trying to appear as stoic as they could. The scent of fear was strong and suddenly overwhelmed her senses as she looked at them.

"Ready!" called the pig officer.

Judy watched in further confusion as the guards raised their weapons and aimed them at the emaciated creatures. Two guards went and stood on either side of the ten holding their weapons. They were each carrying red flags and they held them up on either side of the armed animals so that they could be seen on their periphery without being in the line of fire.

Judy felt her throat go dry. She couldn't understand what she was seeing, and her resolve was cracking as a profound sense of dread overwhelmed her. Judy's voice was hushed and came out as a whisper.

"What . . . what're they-"

The crack of the guns was deafening.

In a single instant, the pig had nodded.

In a single instant, the guards on either side of the row of gunmen had lowered their flags in a precise swish.

The shots that rang out reverberated sharply at which Judy instinctively pinned her ears back tightly. A pink mist flitted through the air around them as the atmosphere became tainted with droplets of blood, and instantly, Judy saw the bodies fall—some forward, some against the back of the yard—leaving smears of blood on the wall behind them.

Judy's mouth dropped open, but no sound came out. She was stunned into shocked silence. She closed her mouth quickly and looked around, but it seemed no one had noticed her obvious distress.

Two of the animals who'd been shot, a tiger and an otter, had been hit in the chest and arm respectively. The tiger was breathing heavily and struggled to breathe as he tried to push himself up against the wall. He was coughing blood and could feel his breaths coming in short as his lungs drowned in it. The otter clutched his arm in agony and cried out as he shuddered painfully on the ground, gripping his arm as he tried to soothe and stop the flow of blood.

"You fucking morons!" shouted the pig as he slowly strode forward. "Aim for their heads!" he finished. He withdrew his own gun from his holster as sauntered up to the heavily breathing tiger, aimed the gun at the creature's head, and fired, dropping the tiger instantly.

Judy stopped herself from flinching and looking away when, as the tiger fell, she saw the large exit wound in the back of his head.

Judy pinned her ears back in terrified surprise at the shock of what she had just witnessed and worked hard to suppress a scream as the shot rang out.

The guard then strode over to the otter who quickly sat up on his knees as he looked up at the pig.

"No! Please!" he said as the pig came nearer, "let me pick again! I was lucky! This is a sign! I wasn't supposed t-"

The shot to his head silenced him, and Judy ground her teeth tightly to keep herself from making a sound. Her face muscles tightened to keep her from tearing up at the otter's desperate plea. Never in her life did she ever think she'd be able to forget the sound of his voice.

She looked down at the ground and watched the crimson blood of the fallen preds comingle on the pavement. She forced her head up and made herself look straight ahead.

"Alrighty," said the bison next to her, "now it's our turn," he finished as he stepped forward. He walked across the yard toward the fallen preds, and she watched as several other guards stepped away from their posts and did the same. She observed as they picked up the bodies of the dead creatures, lifted them, and dragged them off to the side.

There was another large mechanised gate made of reinforced steel set in the western wall of the yard which now swung open as the other guards helped each other drag the corpses through it.

"C'mon, Hopps!" shouted her partner from across the yard. She looked around and saw that the only body that was left was that of the otter's. She walked over to it as measuredly as she could, her mind in total shock at what she'd seen, and she forced herself to clench her emotions tightly as she felt them surge forward, pushing all throughout her at once.

 _'It's just like Honey taught you,'_ she said as she recalled what to do in the face of difficult circumstances. And yet, at the same time, Honey had _never_ prepared her for anything like this. These circumstances were beyond anything she could have imagined. _'Bullshit,'_ she replied to herself. _'This is nothing like Honey taught you.'_

She tried to act as normally as she could as she hoisted the otter from beneath his armpits and started to drag him, his blood dripping down and trailing along behind her as she walked. She tried and failed to ignore the way his mouth gaped open, his shattered teeth and muzzle open for all to see.

Her mind rebelled at the situation, screaming as she could feel the heat from his still-warm corpse sink itself into her flesh, feeling as though she were a part of him. She resisted the urge to hyperventilate and painfully clamped down on the side of her that was having a full-fledged panic attack.

She walked backwards out of the gate and into the area beyond. Looking behind, she saw where the other's had gone. About twelve feet away sat a large van with ample space in the back. She saw that that's where the others had loaded the bodies. They were walking up to her now, smiling and chatting amicably among themselves.

She got to the van and threw the otter's body on the heap of flesh inside. She had no idea where the van was headed. And frankly, she didn't want to know.

Blood was dripping off the back, and Judy stepped back quickly, disgusted at the possibility of getting any on her feet, her chest tightening in disgust. She stepped back and closed the door when the driver shouted at her to do so.

She slammed the doors and went back up, following where the others had gone, into the yard. The door closed automatically as she stepped back inside.

The bison who was her partner motioned quickly from across the yard for her to join him. She dashed across the open space, avoiding fragments of flesh and bone, as well as gouts of blood, and took her spot next to him and waited. Moments later, the gates of the prison opened at the far end and another ten prisoners came forward.

Judy felt herself start to mentally check out, dismay overwhelming her as she saw them approach, and a terrible sinking feeling settled in her stomach.

"Pretty neat, huh?" commented the bison as he looked down at her keenly.

 _'Is he waiting for me to react?'_ she wondered as she looked up at him. She eyed him dully and affected an air of boredom as she spoke.

"How much longer is this?" she asked.

"It usually takes about the whole two hours or so. We have to do a hundred and fifty-six each time 'round, he said."

Judy's heart started beating like a jackhammer.

"So," the bison continued, "we just gotta do this fifteen more times."

Judy nodded and did some quick math in her head. "So . . . we're killing four hundred and sixty-eight animals today?" she asked, unable to keep the slight tremor from shaking her voice.

He nodded as he raised his eyebrows. "Right on! How'd you know?"

"Isn't that three-fourths of the population here?!" she asked, ignoring his question, unable to prevent just a little of her desperation coming through in her voice.

"Hey, no need to get excited. Yeah, that sounds about right," he said, mistaking the panic in her voice for enthusiasm. He laughed as he stood next to her and looked on as the next set of predators took their places opposite the armed guards.

"Ready!" shouted the decorated pig.

The guards aimed their guns. The flaggers held up their banners.

Judy stood still, pinning her ears back, as the second volley pealed out. Judy flinched as she watched heads burst, flinching as the shifting wind lightly dampened her with blood. She watched as she suppressed the urge to vomit as they fell, their faces conveying nothing but blank stares, their flesh now void of life. Again, she and the other guards came forward to haul off the bodies. Judy made two trips since there were two animals of her size for her to carry out. A smallish feline and an aardwolf.

They were both heavier than the otter, and she struggled in making the two trips, trying to choke back the impulse to retch as the scent of iron filled her nose.

The decorated pig turned to her as she took her place next to the bison again.

"I believe we have a surprise for you, in this next batch," said the pig as he came near her. "An enemy of yours who you may find quite changed in his demeanour. We'll bring him out alone so you can have the pleasure of looking him in the face."

Judy looked up at him, puzzled.

He motioned for her to follow him.

She went and stood next to him, facing the wall and the bloody abstract that stained it. She heard the door to the prison open behind her but stood still, staring straight ahead as the anticipation crept up on her in anxious waves.

The steps came closer and closer, till at last, they were right behind her.

The prisoner finally marched past both the pig and her, and as she looked up at his back as he walked, she could tell he was a tiger.

The large mammal reached the wall, and the guards who led him turned him to face forward.

Judy let out a gasp of recognition when she saw the eyes of the district attorney who'd prosecuted her looking back at her.

"Is that the district attorney?" she asked as she tore her eyes from the tiger and looked up at the pig.

He smiled down at her cruelly.

"In fact, he is!" said the pig as he looked down at her. "I thought this might be a welcome surprise to you!"

Judy felt her breath leave her as the tiger looked directly at her. She would never forget the bleak look in his eyes. He was positively terrified.

"Take a look around you," said the pig. "All of this was started because of you! You were the first to take down a vicious pred and we're just continuing that work. Swinton and Bellwether initiated the program shortly after things started developing with you. You're a hero!"

She kept her eyes facing straight forward as she tried her best to conceal everything. It was too fucking much! She couldn't stand it! She could feel her mind fracturing and splitting in her skull as she tried to check out of the situation she was in.

But when she looked into the tiger's eyes, she realised she couldn't. Not now: Not while he was dying.

The most important thing you can do for someone is to be there for them when they die, she thought. It was something a doctor had once told her many years ago, and she had taken the advice to heart.

And so, for him—and only him—she dropped her mask, and for a shining moment, she let him see the dearth of sadness, regret, and sorrow that flowed through her. She gazed at him and willed him to feel the profundity of her feeling.

His dead expression faltered as he looked at her, sensing in that brief flash in her eyes everything she'd meant to convey. He took a deep breath and let it out shakily as a guard approached him from the side. He nodded his head at her slightly as he turned back to face forward, looking straight on.

He looked straight on as his mind blanked. He felt as though he should have some profound thought as he heard the guard loading and cocking his gun next to him.

The only thing that entered his mind was just how much he never got to accomplish. His composure broke slightly and he chuffed for a moment as he mourned the life he might have had. As the guard raised his gun, the last clear thought he had was a hope that someone would tell his story. He didn't want to be forgotten.

Judy watched the guard fire the gun into the side of the tiger's temple.

She watched blood burst from the exit wound.

She watched the brief look of pain on the tiger's face the second before he died.

She watched his body seize, the muscles in his arms and legs strain, as the last vestiges of his consciousness left him.

He fell with his face toward her, his eyes open in a look that reached her from far beyond.

And suddenly she was in a cave of darkness, swallowed up by darkness and silence as she confronted the nullity of life in that moment, void of everything she'd ever known or experienced.

From somewhere far away, she felt the spectre she'd imagined before becoming a witness to the awfulness surrounding her looking down on them. She could imagine its terrifying visage smiling as it contemplated at her.

Numbly, she smiled up at the pig and shook his paw as they dragged the tiger's corpse away. She felt herself dying inside as she stepped lively toward the bison in the corner. He greeted her jovially and nodded at her.

"You did good for your first round," he said as she stood next to him, watching as the gates opened and nine more prisoners were marched out.

"Thanks," she said brightly as she felt her mind spinning as her soul distanced itself from the horror before her. "I just wish there weren't so many of them so that I wouldn't have to be here at all," she said, unable to keep part of the truth from coming out in her words.

The bison nodded down to her and smiled as the word "Ready!" echoed over them and the guards raised their rifles.

"One batch at a time," he grinned.

She clenched her teeth as the next volley thundered split the air and the sounds of falling bodies echoed throughout the yard.

-.-.-.-

Judy stared at the paper as she finished writing out her report. Her heart was frozen inside and out. Four hundred and sixty-eight animals were dead, and she had to fill out a report for each one she had carried out. She finished the last one and put her head in her paws as she tried to block out the tears and the shivering she'd seen, and tried to block out the scent of fear and death that clung to her.

After each batch of a hundred and fifty-six, they had to scrub the place clean of blood to stave off putrefaction while another selection was being made. The putrid scent of decay still hung on her along with the metallic tone that tinged it.

She sighed to herself and prepared to knock off early as the yak had suggested earlier. Fortunately, she had forced herself to do her reports in-between batches of prisoners. By the end of it all, she had totally dissociated from what was happening to her, floating outside of herself in a perverse ecstasy as she forced her emotions to shut down.

She still hadn't allowed herself to feel. She _couldn't_. It was too much to take at once, and she bound the awful memories away, hiding them and tamping them down in her psyche.

She took her last stack of reports and to the front office to file them.

She was just in the middle of having them verified by the clerk and receptionist when the yak, whose name she learned was Trevor, came up to her.

"Hey, guess you really made an impression on someone today," he said in his lilting tone as he came up.

Judy turned in curiosity as he reached her.

"What?" she asked.

"Someone wants to see you: The guy who runs this place."

"Oh?" she said as she turned back to the clerk who gave her an approving smile as she finished looking over the reports, nodding as she took them to the back for filing.

"Yeah. On the third floor."

Judy's heart immediately froze as the memory of that terrifying figure standing on the balcony returned with all its horrifying detail.

"He wants me to introduce you to him," continued the yak as he turned around and began leading her.

Judy hesitated for three steps before she realised that she couldn't afford to break character now—not after everything she'd been through—and followed him.

She felt herself checking out again as they rode the elevator to the third floor. Judy felt a looming sense of doom as her mind mapped out exactly where it was they were headed—They were going _right to_ the place where she'd seen that ghostly monstrosity. She had convinced herself over the course of the day that it must have been a figment of her imagination. It must have been that she hadn't really seen what she'd seen—it had only been a hallucination.

The whole idea was ridiculous. She was certain that it was the pig who wanted to meet with her. It was clear that he really ran things around here, she reasoned. But nevertheless, the fact that his office was in the same place where she'd seen the apparition did nothing to calm her nerves.

At last, they reached a great double door with brass handles. The yak opened one for her and ushered her inside.

"Aren't you coming, too?" asked Hopps, making a brave attempt to keep the fear out of her voice.

"Oh, no, I can't do that," he said with a hesitant glance inside. "He told me that he wanted you two to meet alone."

Judy nodded and headed through the door and listened for the click as the yak shut it behind her.

It were as though she were stepping into a nightmare. Something in the room she was in was muddling her senses. A heaviness set into her bones and into the air around her as she tried to find her footing in the foggy around her. She almost fainted. Judy heard something whispering to her faintly, as though far away. The more closely she listened, the more she felt a splitting sensation in her head from earlier. She sucked in breath, heavily and deeply, as though there were suddenly a want of it in the atmosphere. She started to feel even more light headed before her mind was suddenly brought into a tight focus with regards to her surroundings

She seemed to be in some sort of antechamber, she observed a step-up in front of her that lead to what looked like the main part of what appeared to be an office. The area she was standing in was dimly lit, and further on, the main part of the office dead ahead was even more dimly lit. She could make out a desk where someone was eating and could hear the sounds of chewing and the noise of metal scraping on porcelain.

She observed a step-up in front of her that lead to what looked like the main part of an office. The area in which she was standing was dimly lit, and further on, the main part of the office dead ahead was even more dimly lit. She could make out a large desk ahead of her where someone was eating. She could hear the sounds of chewing and the noise of metal scraping on porcelain.

There was a pungent aroma in the air that made her hackles rise in fear, and she desperately wanted to leave this place. She forced herself to stay still as she demanded her mind and body remain loyal to her. She sensed somehow that bolting for the door and running screaming from the place would land her in this prison and its terrifying murder by lottery system immediately, and that was a terrifying prospect she most certainly did not want.

What struck her as even stranger was that she had no basis for her fear. She simply felt it. It was the same presence that had been dogging her the night she shot Otterton. And the night she was attacked. It was a fear that was rooted in darkness and which sank itself inter her mind and soul.

Her breath caught in her throat as her eyes adjusted to the dim lighting, and her heart clenched she finally made out the shape of the terrifying figure she'd seen before. Now she saw it sitting right in front of her at a desk eating a meal rather than as a mere figment of her mind. She was unable to prevent herself from hyperventilating as she looked at it.

It was large and imposing and seemed to fill the room, and she could tell that if it were standing it would be many times taller than she.

She shook as her body stood rooted itself to the spot with a fear she couldn't rationally understand. This creature had done nothing to her, had done nothing to earn her ire nor distrust. She had only just found out that there was such a thing as . . . whatever the hell it was. It was beyond her ability at that moment to describe and her mind screamed at her that it was something powerful and supernatural. Its shape seemed amorphous and all over the place, looking almost like an animal who'd been caught in a bad fire.

The monster looked up from its meal and she stared into its eyes and suddenly felt the awful whispering in her head get louder, but for the life of her, she couldn't understand what it was that she was hearing. She realised quickly, however, that she didn't want to. It looked at her and motioned with its paw for her to come forward. When she stood immobile, it laughed.

"Come forward, My Dear. Let me have a look at you!" he said. His voice was deep and booming, though somewhat jovial in tone. There was a hint of iron in his timbre, and she couldn't put her finger on it, but there was something in his voice that demanded obedience.

Still, his calming voice soothed her somewhat, and she began to take a step forward. Then another. And in moments, she had crossed the office and was standing right in front of the dark being. The spacious area was beautifully furnished with brown wooden flooring and walls. There was lavish carpeting on the ground and ornate fixtures everywhere from the lamps to the bookshelves that lined the walls. If she didn't know any better, she would have taken this for a very comfortable study in someone's mansion. But for the creature, she might've been able to make herself at home—even considering she was still inside this hell of a prison. There was a cushy chair made for an animal her size sitting to his left on the side of the desk, and he gestured to it.

Judy went over and sat down. She wrinkled her nose at the scent coming from his plate. It was like nothing she'd ever smelled before. It was disgusting and slightly unsettling, but she had no idea what it was. Though the smell was unpleasant, it wasn't so overwhelming that she felt repulsed by it.

She took a deep breath and tried to force herself to stop shaking. Unfortunately, she couldn't help the very noticeable tremor that entered her voice. "What are you eating?" she asked conversationally.

She cursed herself, petrified that she might have blown her cover with her trembling—but holy hell, how could any animal not react with anything but horror and fear?!

The creature peered over at her and began to laugh heartily. "It's alright, My Dear. Most animals have that reaction to me when they first meet me. Mostly because of what I am," he said as he commented on her palpable fear. Though he smiled down at her, there was no corresponding light in his eyes whose darkness seemed to suck the life out of her.

Judy felt herself going cold all over as she stared up at him.

"But anyway, I brought you up here to tell you that I was very impressed with the work you did on your very first day on the job. I will most certainly be putting in more than a word or two about your dedication to this job."

"You mean . . . ?"

"I mean," the creature said as it smiled, "consider yourself a sergeant."

She nodded and looked away. She sat there for what seemed like minutes before looking around wondering if she could leave.

"No," said the creature, "you can't leave. Not quite yet."

Judy looked back at him in surprise. Suddenly, she felt a slight unravelling in her mind as memories of the day came flooding back into her mind. She felt herself reliving every detail in a matter of seconds while seeming to last an eternity as every inch of her memories were examined.

She was shocked back into the present, even as she'd never left, to find herself screaming. She stopped and felt herself breathing heavily in a gripping horror as the terror of the events she'd witnessed that day broke loose in her mind.

Tears started pouring down her face even as she tried to tamp the memories back down and mind them.

"You should be proud of your work. Why are you crying?" said the monster as he looked over at her. His voice conveyed concern but she saw none of it in his face. Her mind screamed at her that she was looking at a demon.

"Unless," he said, drawing out the word, "you have something to hide."

She gripped the seat slightly as she looked on. She remembered what Honey had told her: to maintain her expression in the face of being found out and deny it—there's no way anyone could see inside her head, so as long as she guarded herself, there was no way for anyone to have anything on her.

"What?" she asked, her emotions still all over the place as she looked at him.

"I said, 'Unless you're hiding something.' Don't be stupid, I can tell you're not being entirely truthful with me. You're planning something. Or you've got an agenda," he said. "And frankly, I don't care what it is. You seem to be playing ball with us for now. But I'm warning you," he said between mouthfuls, "the second you step out of line, you'll end up on my plate, too."

Judy closed her eyes and let out a shuddering breath. Her paw was shaking as she brought it to her forehead to mop away sweat that had formed there.

"Y-you can't mean that," she said in a breathy whisper.

"Sure I can!" said the creature brightly. "For one thing," it started, "I'm enjoying the fruits of your labour even now."

Judy opened her eyes and looked at him quizzically for a moment before she noticed he was gesturing to his plate.

"E-excuse me?" she asked, her voice trembling again.

"That otter you dragged out. I had him prepared as a meal for myself this evening," he said breezily. "I was quite the expert hunter when I was younger, but it's been a while since I've enjoyed meat." He held up a piece on the end of his fork.

Judy immediately felt her mouth fill with saliva. She was going to be sick!

"Trash can's there," it said in a bored tone as it gestured to the side of his desk with his knife, and Judy immediately pitched forward on the ground, put her head in the bin, and began vomiting the contents of her stomach as the revolting idea ran through her mind again and again. It was cannibalistic! It was disgusting! It was the most retching thing she'd ever heard!

She continued for a few moments, stopping and starting as she couldn't help but hear him eat. When she had finished, she looked up to find the beast offering her napkin.

She looked at it wearily before snatching it away and wiping her mouth and throwing it into the rubbish bin, too.

She sat back on the chair, her stomach and body aching, her soul in turmoil as she felt all of her defences fail at the onslaught of violent thoughts assailing her from every angle.

Her body was visibly shaking with fear. The monster saw her and laughed heartily, giving her a light pat on the shoulder from which she shrank, wincing as it touched her.

"Most animals have that reaction to me when they first see me and find out who and what I am," he said as he turned back to his plate. "You, however, seem to've had no trouble getting your paws bloody with those wild chompers. In fact, you have a bit of . . . ." As he trailed off, he reached down to her and picked something off the top of her head. He withdrew it, and as she saw it in the dim light she took it for a piece of bone. To her infinite disgust, she watched as he popped it into his mouth and swallowed it. "Probably a piece of skull given they were shooting them in the heads all day long. It's impossible that you shouldn't have gotten any on you."

Judy was beyond horrified as she observed the daemon. Trembling, she voiced the question that had been on her mind from the moment she saw it. "What . . . uh . . ." she trailed off, somewhat nervously, "what species are you?" she asked as she tried to keep herself from vomiting again. She looked away as he brought another piece of charred flesh to his mouth and began eating it.

When he swallowed he turned and looked down at her with a smile.

"Human."

-.-.-.-

The following morning, early, Hopps received a call from Swinton asking her how things had gone at the prison. Judy had spent the entire night screaming into her pillow and crying until she was hoarse as sleep refused to take her—the faces of the animals that had been killed along with the mysterious being she'd met with the other night morphed in her mind's eye. They became visions of violent fear every time she closed her eyes. And this _after_ she'd taken a long shower in the hottest water she could stand to wash off the blood that had stained her throughout the day. The strange whispering she'd heard in the creature's office had become louder and more present throughout the night until around four in the morning when it began to dissipate—none of which she dared share with her "friend," Swinton.

Brokenly, she put on the mask and became "Hopps" as she spoke with the pig, telling her that she was feeling ill after her meeting with The Human. She found to her surprise that Swinton had already given her the rest of the week off, saying that everyone who'd met the creature had come out feeling sick by the end. The chief assured her that in time she would come to terms with the reality of his existence. The chief also warned her to say nothing to anyone regarding his presence—a sentiment which Judy felt innately.

There was no way she could speak of these events to anyone. No one would believe her. Not even Honey. Well, probably.

The chief had gone on to tell her that none of the animals at the ZPD had met with The Human without needing to take some time off to recover from the shock of seeing him. The pig assured her that it would get easier if she just gave the creature time to work on her, and that her initial feelings of revulsion would fade, till at last, she'd be friends with him.

Judy didn't have the slightest idea what it was that the chief had meant by suggesting she allow the creature to "work on her," but she didn't like it, and she was filled with even more dread than before. She'd felt an uncanny pull toward the darkness and the horror and the blood and the crying, and she resisted it with all her might. It wasn't in her nature to give in to evil when she saw it so starkly. True, she had been seduced by Bellwether to carry out their schemes and be their pawns before, but now that she'd seen the truth, she couldn't allow herself to go back. She had seen with an awful clarity how terrifying and perverse it was that the darkness could ever be seen as something beautiful by anyone. Her guts had clenched when Swinton had described the beauty of a world of only prey animals and how the human had promised to help them as long as they remained loyal to it.

The conversation ended with Hopps agreeing perfunctorily with Swinton's statements, hanging up and looking straight ahead at the wall in front of her. The walls of her apartment, the dingy bed, the messy table, had once been the source of her pride because they meant that she had finally made it. She was no longer a child, she was no longer a face in a crowd of brothers and sisters. She was herself, now. She had made it and achieved her dream of being in a position to make the world a better place.

Now, she looked around herself, seeing her apartment for what it was—a dingy dump in the middle of a forlorn neighbourhood. It was devoid of hope and happiness. And, worst of all, her dream to make the world a better place had been desolated twice in the space of six months since joining the force: once—by, in fact, accidentally make the world a _worse_ place by falling for the traps Swinton and City Hall had set for her; and then, a second time, by finding out that things were far worse than she could have ever imagined.

There was no way for her to rationally understand what she'd seen last night in that lavishly furnished office except to say that it was alien and unnatural. Perhaps even supernatural for all she knew. She didn't know how and she didn't know why, but somehow, she felt intuitively that the creature was behind what was going on in the city. Somehow, it had to be him. She also knew from simply being in his presence that his appearance of flesh and blood was merely a persona—a mask that it wore to hide something far uglier. And what that was, she didn't want to know. How was she supposed to stand up to a creature that seemed to have so much at his disposal? How the hell was she to understand it? The cull the other day—from what she had been led to understand—was nearly a regular occurrence. Or at least it had been since she'd been used as a political pawn.

All she could do in the face of such odds was take a step back, examine her options, and come up with a suitable solution. The trouble was that there was no solving this—there was no solving the depths of the horror she'd seen the other day. There was no solving the utter brutality of the forces in the city. There was no solving the intractable problem that was the evil being perpetuated in the city.

The evil she'd witnessed was institutionally rooted—even to the highest positions in the city. Its corruption touched everyone and no one was beyond its reach. Not even the district attorney. How the hell could a prosecutor who took on cases _on behalf of the city itself_ be taken into custody and summarily executed for doing his job? Did they really expect that nobody would notice? Or perhaps it was just that nobody would be able to do anything about it. Whatever the reason, it all led to one conclusion: there was no escaping an institution who could do that. If the very public disappearance of the DA couldn't have been prevented, what chance did _she_ stand of surviving? What chance did she stand of changing it, even incrementally?

How was she supposed to get out if this alive?

Judy flopped back down on her bed and stared at the ceiling.

There was nothing she could do.

-.-.-.-

_8:17 AM_

Honey hadn't heard from Judy, her newest informant, either by text or phone in three days _and_ she had missed an appointment. She knew from the grapevine that her protégé had been given some time off from the ZPD, though for what, she wasn't certain. It didn't matter: Whatever the reason, it didn't bode well. She had no idea what Judy had seen and heard inside the prison—Honey knew that Judy had taken a shift there, but that was all—and she'd been hoping for some kind of update. If nothing else, at least for her to check-in and say, "I went to Searton, nothing important happened."

It would have been _something_ , anyway.

Honey was headed to Hopps' apartment now, and she hoped to find the bunny and wring some answers as to why the hell she was being blown off. She had called and texted numerous times to no avail and had gone far past the point of losing her patience. She thought they had something of a budding friendship if not an employer-employee relationship. Was it that the bunny didn't get how crucial things were? Judy needed to be professional about this!

They'd made a deal, and by God, she was going to hold that bunny to it!

She'd need to play it cool, though. It was easier, she felt, to lure the truth out of animals she didn't trust if she feigned affection or a jovial attitude. If Judy were keeping something from her, she needed to put on as though things were alright. And in the event the bunny had a perfectly logical explanation for her recent behaviour, all the better to put on a mask of light-hearted understanding.

 _'No need to jump to conclusion just yet,'_ thought the badger.

She walked up to the apartment and distinctly heard humming from within. _'Just gotta play this cool, and if it turns out she's blowing me off for no reason . . . well, I can get her ass on that, later . . . .'_

-.-.-.-

_8:20 AM_

Judy hummed to herself as she sat at the small table in her apartment cutting up a breakfast salad for herself. She didn't look up from her work. Not even when she heard a knock at the door of her apartment. Nor did she stir a few moments later when she heard the door open and close. Footsteps made their way toward her, and she tuned it out as she focused nearly all her attention on chopping up the flowers and stems for her salad.

Her sharp hearing had told her it was Honey coming up to her door. She could tell, by now, what the badger's footsteps sounded like. She could even tell by the way she knocked.

Judy knew that she was going to have to answer for the way she'd neglected her deal. As far as she was concerned, however, she was right for extracating herself from it. In her mind, she was angry with the badger and righteous so. It wasn't fair, she thought, for the badger to expect more from her than what she had given. And in the time that Judy had spent by herself, alone in her apartment, she'd made a decision. A decision which was, in turn, the reason she was making the salad.

Judy didn't bother looking up from her prep work as the badger stood next to her and merely continued her meticulous cutting as she waited for her contact to speak.

Honey took a deep breath and looked the bunny over. It was odd to her that Judy didn't stop what she was doing and acknowledge her. She didn't even greet her. It were almost as though she had only a single-minded focus on her cutting. This wasn't the Judy she knew, and the humming felt odd. None of this seemed right, and she looked around the apartment and saw what were signs of obvious neglect. Dirty clothes were strewn on the ground rather than in what was clearly a clothes basket. There were bits of litter around, sheets had been left unchanged, and a heap of soiled linens lay in a bunch at the foot of her bed. Honey looked to the side and saw that the bunny's garbage was overflowing. And yet, here was Judy, calmly humming to herself and cutting a salad.

"You haven't been answering my calls," said the badger. "Or my texts."

"I've been busy," replied Judy, politely though curtly.

 _'Is she seriously trying to blow me off again?!'_ thought the badger angrily. She swallowed her anger, years of practiced experience allowing none to show in her body or expression in any way as she quieted her body's natural inclination to seethe.

"For three days?" asked the badger.

"I've been thinking."

 _'You don't have the right to think!'_ the badger thought to herself vehemently as she looked at the rabbit. What the hell did Judy mean by that, anyway? Had she rethought the situation? Did she want to do things differently? She couldn't! Honey didn't want to, but if she needed to, she could easily give the bunny away and have her killed. Or at least blackmail her and then have her killed for noncompliance. It sucked, but that was the nature of the business they were in—No loose ends and no stragglers. The delicate nature of her work required it. Personal friendship aside, she would have no choice, as much as it would pain her.

From Honey's perspective, she had revealed herself and the nature of her business. She had exposed herself to risk and harm. That risk was acceptable since it came with the territory—that did not mean that Honey had to put her own self at risk just to keep the bunny alive if Judy decided to go back on their deal: if the bunny were captured and decided to talk, revealing any of their secrets, it would be a huge fucking setback. As far as she knew, City Hall wasn't even aware that they had anyone working against them, so the knowledge that there was at least some force working against them if Hopps were caught and decided to talk might sharpen their eyes when it came to potential subterfuge. And that was an unacceptable risk.

Judy continued humming lightly, and Honey couldn't help but feel even more strangely in Judy's presence. The badger knew that Judy must be aware, at least on some level, of what her thoughts at that moment were. Judy had to know of the danger she was putting the two of them in. It were almost as though she didn't have a backup plan! And that was an issue that was shockingly out of character for the bunny, too.

But now it seemed to the badger, as she watched Judy continue to chop up flowers and stems for the salad, that the bunny's demeanour was too light. She knew that Judy was bound to see sad situations in the prison and wondered whether the bunny's current dismissive attitude were in reaction to something she'd seen while there. It would make sense, but what on Earth could have trigged her current attitude?

Honey decided to play this with a professional tone in the hopes of getting Judy to open up about _something_.

"I need a status report, Hopps. You missed a meeting two days ago and you didn't call or text or anything. There are certain protocols that go into effect if an agent has been compromised. I held off on that because I was sure that you were alright."

Judy paused in her cutting, the shirfing sound of slicing vegetables and the clack of her knife as it hit the cutting board resounded through the tiny apartment.

The bunny stared ahead, blankly.

"Do I want to talk?" she asked aloud. "Do I want to talk about what?"

Judy pursed her lips and continued looking right ahead at the wall. She forced herself to do so, refusing to look anywhere else.

The badger quirked an eyebrow. Now she knew that something was _definitely_ off.

"About . . . what happened the other day," said the badger vaguely as she hoped to get the bunny to continue. Something was bothering Judy and she needed to know what it was.

"I'm actually preparing a report about it. I have a lot of stuff to think through and how I want to put it. A lot of what I saw is . . . difficult, to put into words," she said at last. She turned and gave the badger a reassuring smile. "I'll explain the whole thing to you, I promise! If you want," said Judy as she gestured to a chair, "you can stay and hang out for a bit."

Honey was unconvinced but said nothing—instead putting on an expression that conveyed nothing but confidence.

"You're actually not the only meeting I have today, so I've actually gotta get going," she said as she looked over at what Judy was cutting up.

There were some beautiful stems and flowers she seemed to be chopping along with the leaves of various plants. Honey recognised Christmas rose, foxgloves, and lily of the valley along with some red berries that looked absolutely delicious. She reached out and took a few to eat.

"Don't eat those!" shout Judy quickly as she snatched the red berries away from the badger. "They're very expensive," she said, slightly embarrassed at her reaction. "I just got 'em as a treat," she finished, somewhat shyly.

Honey's mouth fell open as she stared at the bunny before finally speaking. "What the hell is wrong with you?! _You_ invited me to stay! I only came here in the first place because you were blowing me off," she said, her anger subsiding. "I thought you were my friend," she finished weakly, in spite of her earlier thoughts.

To Honey's surprise, Judy threw down her knife and stood up to face her.

"Shut up!" she screamed loudly as she advanced. "This is _my_ apartment! This is the one place I have in my life where I'm in control of myself. If it's not you controlling me and telling me what I have to do it's someone else! Everyone has expectations of me, only not the normal kind: the kind that can get me killed—those are the expectations that mammals have of me and it's not _fucking_ _fair_! I'm always somebody's pawn. I'm as expendable as a piece of machinery! You've treated me like that from the moment we met. You didn't care about saving me, you only cared about what you could get from me! So no, we are _not_ friends!"

Hopps sat down and stared straight down into her paws. "I'm being batted around from side to side and all you're doing is putting me in more and more dangerous situations," she said tightly. "We don't stand a chance," she finished weakly.

Honey observed Judy darkly for a moment as some of her words hit home. After a moment, she threw off the sense of guilt that was being levelled at her. Judy had known the risks when she joined, and if she didn't have the stomach to take what she was confronting in this line of work, then maybe it was for the best that they part ways.

She _was_ going to get a true explanation out of Judy, soon. And she was most definitely going to get that final report from her.

"Alright. The deal's off," started Honey. "If you don't really wanna be a part of this, you don't have to, but there will be consequences."

Honey watched as the bunny turned away from her and went back to cutting her food.

"There always are," said the bunny, "until there aren't."

Honey turned to leave and made it to the door when she heard Judy call out after her.

"Here," said the bunny as she came up to her holding a white flower she didn't recognise. She opened her paw, and Judy handed it to her.

"Don't eat it. Wear it on your head. And . . . I just wanted to say that I'm sorry. For everything. Come by tomorrow. Or this evening. I'll have my final report ready for you." The bunny paused for a moment. "I'm sorry that I said we weren't friends, it's just that there's a lot weighing on me right now. It'll all be in the report, and hopefully, it'll clear things up."

Honey sighed and nodded curtly before leaving wordlessly, closing the door behind her with a heavy heart.

She couldn't have Judy killed. She saw that within herself, already. But then there had to be some way to get Judy to leave the city and have her go back to Bunnyburrow.

She would have to do her planning later, though; right now, she had an appointment she couldn't afford to miss. As it was, she was going to be late and she sent a text to her next meeting as she walked away.

As she stepped away from the tenement building and into the street, she did as Judy had suggested and put the flower in her ear. She walked at a leisurely pace and reached the end of the second block away from Judy's apartment some fifteen minutes later.

Something odd occurred to her, then: As she thought back to her whole exchange with Judy, she remembered seeing a carton of milk on the edge of the table. She hadn't paid it much attention and had even slipped by her notice in the midst of her argumebt with Judy, but now it stood out—rabbits didn't drink cow's milk, did they? She'd never heard of such a thing. It didn't seem like the healthiest thing for her to be drinking.

She took the flower out of her hair for a moment and looked at it.

"Oh how lovely!" came a voice to her side. Honey started and looked over at who had spoken.

"I'm sorry?" said Honey to a female squirrel who stood off to the side. The creature was several times smaller than Honey but seemed to be the proprietor of the shop she was standing in front of.

Honey looked through the storefront windows and saw them full of flowers. They were all gorgeous and in full bloom.

The squirrel looked up at her. "That potato flower," said the squirrel in answer to Honey, "it looks beautiful!"

Honey smiled. "Thank you!" she said, smiling.

But just a moment later, a thought occurred to her that had her smile fading. Honey heard a bell chime in her brain, the colour on her collar flicking from green to yellow, as she looked back in the direction she'd come. An odd thought came to her as she looked back where she'd come from and thought over what she'd seen in the bunny's salad:

Potato tops—from leaves to flowers, fruit, seeds, and stems—were all poisonous in high quantities.

Honey furrowed her brow and took a few steps back in the direction of Hopps' apartment.

She remembered the lily of the valley and berries she'd seen on the table—their sweet fragrances masked a powerful chemical that she knew was used herbally to treat heart conditions.

Her steps hastened.

Then she thought back to the foxgloves: She remembered from her college botany courses that the plant's Latin name was digitalis—which lent its name to a well-known medication derived from its roots whose chemicals could be used to treat patients who suffered from heart conditions but only if taken in small doses.

She remembered the Christmas rose she'd seen, too: All of those plants were poisonous!

She broke into a run, sprinting as quickly as she could back to Judy's apartment, terror and fear coursing through her as she realised the bunny meant to kill herself.

She reached the apartment and practically burst through the doors as she tore up the stairs, not wanting to take the time to wait for the elevator. She reached the top, terrified that she was too late. She dashed over to Judy's apartment and tried the door, finding it unlocked, and burst through it.

She felt her heart clench when she saw Judy gagging and spluttering on the floor, her body hunched in pain and in the initial stages of what appeared to be a seizure.

"God fucking damn you!" shrieked Honey as she looked at the bunny.

She slammed the door behind her and locked it before dashing over to the small table for a something to jam into the bunny's mouth.

She grabbed a fork and dragged Judy over to a trashcan she saw in the corner and dumped out the contents on the floor.

She jammed the fork into the bunny mouth before sticking her fingers down the bunny's throat. In the midst of her seizing, Judy bit down on the fork and thankfully saved the badger's fingers as she tried to induce vomiting. Suddenly, she felt the tiny creature heave and the warm liquid spill over her paws. Honey turned away in semi-disgust but didn't desist, continuing to gag the rabbit until she had apparantly expelled everything.

Unsatisfied with her work, Honey left the rabbit on the floor on her side as he eyes searched the apartment desperately before her eyes landed on a pitcher that she hoped had water in it. She dashed back and forth as she grabbed both the cup and the pitcher and poured a glass, forcing the bunny to drink the whole cup the instant she returned. She forced several glasses of water into her before forcing her to purge again until she began to expel bile.

Honey rinsed her paws off in the remaining water before picking up the bunny and carrying her over to her bed. Hopps hadn't stopped seizing, and Honey laid her on her side in case she started vomiting again.

Honey looked around for a moment before grabbing the garbage bin and bringing it over to the window. She looked inside and braced herself against the smell as she tried to see to what extent the plants had been digested. She noticed milk in the mixture at the bottom and realised the bunny had managed to keep herself from vomiting up the poisonous concoction by drinking it and lining the inside of her stomach with it.

She set it down before taking the pitcher with her down the hall to the communal sink and watering area. She dumped out the contaminated water and washed it out with soap along with her paws to get a more thorough clean before filling the pitcher with fresh water and returning to the room.

The first thing she noticed upon returning was that she couldn't immediately hear the rabbit's breathing. She quickly dashed over and checked her out. She was relieved to see that she was still alive and that her breathing was merely light.

"Goddamn you, Judy," she started as she looked at the rabbit. "You didn't need to do this."

When Hopps became a little more conscious, the badger forced her to drink as much water as she could.

She watched with concern as the bunny slipped into a coma and monitored her vitals, carefully.

In the meantime, she sent another series of texts to the effect that she was in the middle of a life or death situation and cancelled the rest of her meetings and appointments that day save for those of the utmost importance. She also sent out a message asking for someone to help her look after a fallen agent—in spite of her cancelling her meetings, there were still other obligations she had to see after if she didn't want her end of the organisation to collapse.

Several animals responded, but Jack Savage seemed to be the closest and she asked him over.

When he arrove, she explained the situation and let him know what she was doing—most especially, pushing fluids whenever the bunny came close to being awake in order to flush out the toxins. She was tending the bunny on the bed and explained that she'd taken to using the trashcan as a bed pan.

Honey ignored Jack's blush at her mention of that. Her emotions tinged with more than a bit of annoyance. They were in the middle of a very grave business and there was no time for modesty if he felt shy about removing a patient's clothes.

As she readied her things and prepared to leave, she noticed something on the floor beneath the dining table. Upon closer inspection, it appeared to be a carrot-shaped pen. It was right next to one of the table legs, and it seemed to Honey that it must have rolled there after it had fallen off the table. She could easily imagine it having tumbled when Judy took her spill from the chair.

She bent down to pick it up.

While she was down there, she also saw a piece of lined paper. It was yellow and had been folded. There was a sharp crease in the back, and it seemed to have opened and floated face down.

 _'For your ears only,'_ she read to herself when she turned it over. That was all that was on it.

She looked confused for a moment. _What_ , exactly, was for her ears only?

"What is it?" asked Jack as he came up behind her.

She turned to look back at him and regarded him grimly for a moment before smiling at the sight of him. He was casually dressed in a black polo shirt and a pair of blue jeans.

"Sorry, I just can't get over the fact that I never get to see you dressed like a normal animal," she said, at last, unable to keep from expressing her delight at seeing him wearing something normal people would wear, for a change.

He furrowed his brow in mock annoyance as he waited for an answer to his question.

Honey looked down again at the sheet of paper in her paw. "It's a note from Judy. It just says, 'For your ears only.' What do you think she meant by that?"

"Was that under the table?"

"Yeah, I think it fell there."

"Was there anything with it?"

Her whiskers twitched. "No. Just this pen," she started, "but I-"

She cut herself off as she looked at the pen and saw a button on the side. Turning it in her paw, she felt the ridges of a speaker and realised that it was a pen recorder.

"It's a recording device . . ." she trailed off.

Jack came over and nodded. "Okay, then you take off and listen to it. You can't stay here—you have to go—and she meant for you to hear it by yourself."

She nodded to herself, still looking down at the pen recorder in her paw, as she turned and started for the door.

"Yeah. And Jack? Thanks for coming. Let me know if you have any problems."

He nodded as he watched her go. "No problem. I was looking for something to do on my day off; I guess I just didn't think that this would be it."

"I'm sorry about that," she replied as she reached the door.

"No, no, no! I didn't mean that as a complaint. It's fine, really!" he laughed slightly before dropping his smile.

She nodded to him again. "Thank you."

He smirked warmly and nodded his head gently in reply before watching her turn and leave the apartment.

-.-.-.-

Honey sat in Judy's darkened apartment and simply stared at her. The day had been long and fraught with the troubles and mayhem that made up the business of mounting a revolution from the inside. She'd made contact with several operatives that day and held two meetings which she'd expected to be small but which, in the end, became conferences. They had dealt in part with the question of what the hell had happened to the district attorney. If she had listened to Hopps' recording before the meetings, she would have heard the sad news before going in. Now she had to inform his wife and cubs, and she had to inform the council that another reformer had been captured and killed.

City Hall were getting bolder if they thought they could get away with disappearing a high-ranking public official, and that was something that needed to be delt with.

Honey sighed as she thought back on her day.

After the difficulty of sorting out the conferences, she could only sit and think back to Judy. She had texted Jack several times for a status update.

He mentioned that she'd been lying on her side and that several times, she'd vomited the water he tried to give her. He'd changed her clothes a few times when he hadn't been quick enough with the garbage pail but that other than that she was fine.

In the whole day, Honey hadn't had the chance to listen to the recording. But when she stopped by that evening to relieve Jack, the first thing she'd done was listen to it.

She'd had to listen to it over. And then listen to it over again.

And as she listened to it, she found her latent anger at the bunny slowly become sympathy before finally morphing into understanding.

If she'd experienced what Judy'd experienced for her _first_ assignment, she could imagine trying to kill herself, too.

Judy, Honey realised, had confronted the nullity of existence in that prison. She had no idea what to make of the bunny's description of The Human, however, except to imagine that the bunny must have snapped under the duress and stress of witnessing the horrible deaths of so many animals! Nevertheless, she couldn't forget the bunny's insistent tone that what she had seen there had been real—most especially the human.

Judy had described him as a corpulent monster—large—with black eyes and a shock of reddish-brown fur on its head. She said it had long fur growing down from its chin, but that apart from that, and a few stray hairs elsewhere on his arms, the creature was mostly furless.

Honey had no idea what to make of the situation. In her years of spying and gearing up for what she and her superiors had hoped would be a takeover of the city, she would never have imagined the things Judy had spoken of on her recording. The situation had now become muddled by an unforeseen variable. If nothing else, from what she understood from Judy's report, City Hall was stepping up its game and going on serious offense. What depressed Honey the most was that she knew of no one at that moment who was in the position, either financially or politically, to stop what was happening.

The outlying cities, burrows, and Zootopian sub-districts were in no strategic position to help. Rushing into a war was a bad idea—these things needed to be planned carefully. And now it seemed that things were further along than she'd thought: Automatic weaponry? That was positively unheard of when a dart was more effective. Well, depending on your goal, that is. What that told the badger was that City Hall was _indeed_ gearing up for war. The fact that they had developed weaponry of the kind Judy had described told her at least one thing plainly—they weren't interested in taking prisoners. They wanted to destroy those whom they saw as enemiesand obliterate them.

Over the next several hours, Honey kept a close watch on the bunny, making sure to push water and helping her urinate when she had to.

Then, in the small hours of the morning, while the badger was staring off into the darkness, she heard the softest moan from the bunny. She turned and watched her stretch on the bed before weakly fluttering her eyes open.

She eyed the bunny wearily, and Judy tiredly turned her head and her gaze to the badger and looked at her softly for a moment.

"Did you bring me back?" she asked weakly.

Honey clenched her teeth and repressed a sob, doing her best not to cry. "No," she said, "you did that yourself."

Judy turned her head carefully to look back up at the ceiling. She seemed to be thinking to herself and then weakly answered, "Yeah, I did. I remember now."

Honey was puzzled but didn't question her. "You need to get some rest," she said quietly.

"Did you hear the message I . . . that I left?"

Honey nodded softly. "Yeah, I did." She paused for a moment. She'd had a lot of time to think about the situation and had come to a decision. "Our deal's off, Judy. I'm gonna find some way to get you out of the city and back to Bunnyburrow. I'll make sure that you and your family are under the protection of the COR—you won't have anything to worry about."

She grabbed the bunny's paw and rubbed it gently. "I'm not sending you back in there," said the badger definitively. "You don't have to go back to that."

She was surprised and even a little startled when she saw the bunny drag her other paw up and place it over her own as she smiled up at her, as though in a daze.

"I _have_ to go back," said Judy.

At first, the badger was certain she hadn't heard her, but as the pale blue morning twilight began to brighten, she had enough in the way of light to see her charge's face. Judy seemed so certain in her statement, and in her eyes, there shone a gleam of presence. This wasn't a dream to Judy, thought Honey—Judy seemed to understand perfectly well what she was saying.

"I have to go back," said Judy again as Honey looked down at her quizzically. "I saw it," the bunny finished. "I saw this other place where things were different. I saw a place where animals of all kinds lived together. There was no fighting, no war, no killing. At least, not like there is here. That's what I want. For the world to be a better place."

"It's sucking out your life. I can't ask you to do that," Honey insisted quietly

Judy closed her eyes and weakly settled back on the bed.

"I need water," she said hoarsely.

Honey withdrew her paw from the stack that she and Judy had made and poured a glass of water from the nightstand. She put her arm around the bunny and helped her sit up and tilt her head before letting her take a few sips of water.

Judy let out a gasp of satisfaction when she'd swallowed the refreshing drink.

She helped the bunny settle back down and watched her drift off into sleep.

Over the next three days, Honey, with the help of Jack and a few others, watched over and cared for Judy. On the third day, the day before Judy was due to start back at the ZPD, she had managed to walk. She had come a long way but was still pale and faint. Judy's nose was a light pink, but Honey remembered those few, terrible moments during the first night when she'd seen her nose turn white, signifying a lack of blood and heart stoppage. She'd mercifully revived her every time, but now, every time she saw Judy looking pale, she was always put in mind of that terrible memory.

They got her story straight: If anyone were to ask why she seemed to be under the weather, she would say she was fighting off a stomach bug. That usually got individuals off her case real quick.

The following morning, her first day of work back, Honey was there again to help her dress and just, in general, get her ready for work.

The badger stayed behind in the apartment to avoid being seen walking together. Though they had been in public in each other's company a handful of times in a few places they both trusted, it was best not to tempt fate any more than they had to.

As Judy stepped out of her apartment that morning, she looked around and took in a breath of city air. The sounds of traffic and noise and general chatter filled her ears, and in spite of what she'd seen a week ago, she had come to the realisation that in spite of the awfulness and nihilism she'd confronted in those dark hours, there was also a lot of good, too. The sun still shone, the dawn was still beautiful, the bright colours of the sky in the morning still filled her with a sense of wonder. She came to a realisation that, having confronted the darkness and nothingness of death and despair, she could choose to simply be okay with what she had. If life really were nothing, as she had felt in those dark moments, why not make her life whatever she wanted it to be? Why not be happy now, while she was alive? At this very moment, at this second, life was as fine as it could be—now all she had to do was improve on that.

She could be okay with dying if it meant that she'd done something monumentally tiny to change things for the better. The bad didn't cancel out the good. There was no reason why it had to—no reason why she had to let it overtake her. Yeah, things were shitty, but so what? Did that mean that she had to stop seeing the beauty that was there, too?

She was determined to see the good—not that she'd always be able to, but she had to try either that or lose her sanity. She was certain that there would be bad, too. She also knew that she would have ups and downs and that some days would be worse than others if what she had seen at the prison was only a foretaste of what was to come. Maybe at some point, she would even come to have the opposite opinion and come to regard Zootopia as an unworkable pipe dream that was doomed to failure from the start.

None of that mattered, though—because right now, things were good, and life was fine and beautiful in spite of the darkness. No matter how bad things got, some things would always remain—there would always be beauty and light and love. There would always be those.

The visions she'd had while dreaming were mostly forgotten, but the driving impetus they gave her as they insisted she continue her work had stayed with her, and she wanted to honour that as best she could.

So she turned and set her face for the work ahead of her; turned, and looked toward City Hall and the ZPD and the sources of misery they were; turned and started walking in their direction.

Walking toward the east, where things begin.

-.-.-.-

Hopps let out a sigh as she finished speaking.

The Happy Towners had been relatively quiet as Hopps told her story, with minimal interruption, and some help from Honey.

They only looked on with a mixture of fear and doubt. Her story was positively mindboggling, and they weren't sure whether to entirely believe it.

They had seen the depths of her despair and felt a sympathy for the way events had unfolded for her, but her determination to press on with the work was reassuring.

She had become, in their minds, a mixture of several different things: Spy, actress, hypocrite, and heroine: But now they saw her core. They had seen that the story she was telling was true—at least to her. They had felt the emotion in her voice, had seen it in her eyes. They'd seen her determination and her willingness to throw herself in the path of danger in order to fight for fairness and equality.

As she stood there in the midst of the circle they had formed, she looked around to each of them.

She took a deep breath as she inwardly squirmed, trying to read their reactions to her story in the uncomfortable silence that followed.

"Any questions?" she asked, at last, unable to stand the awkward quiet that followed.

The brief lull of silence was broken.

"Fuck yeah, there're some fucking questions!" said Finnick, his deep baritone resonating in her ears a bit as he threw his paw out to get Hopps' attention. "The fuck is 'The Human' and what does it mean for us?"


	11. Dramatic Pause

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Predators arrive at Judy's parents' house for whom they're providing accommodations. Jasper and his other siblings begrudgingly attempt to reach out to their other siblings for help in sheltering the refugees. Plans are made for a return to Happy Town in order to gather more information. Jasper, in the meantime, is trying to make peace with his sister's decision to mate a fox all while trying to make sense of there being TWO Judys.
> 
> What remains to be seen is how others will react to Nick and Judy's presence.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Been a while since I've posted anything. Thank you so much to those of you who've encouraged me. I wouldn't be able to go on without your support.
> 
> As always, I'd like to thank my editor Soildier for his help in preparing this chapter.

* * *

 

The two of them looked at each other, trying to work out how to describe what they knew.

At last, Hopps turned and looked around nervously for a moment before stepping forward as she took the lead.

“We don’t know much about him,” she said. “Only that he has something to do with what’s been going on recently in the city. We think he might be some kind of alien. None of our operatives have had a chance to get especially close to him.”

“Some have,” murmured Honey.

Hopps turned and regarded Honey with a look of surprise.

Honey merely stared back at her and cocked an eyebrow. “You don’t know everything that goes on in my world,” she said pointedly.

Hopps tilted her eyebrows questioningly before turning back to the group.

“Then,” she started tersely, “maybe we know more about him than I thought,” she finished somewhat tightly. There was a slight hint of playfulness in her voice, as though to soften her annoyance toward the badger. “It’s just that, from what I saw, he was running the place. Or close to it. I don’t know how he’s involved in the rest of what’s been taking place in the city. Nobody I know has ever seen anything like it before, but he seemed youngish to me.” She looked to Honey for reassurance who just shrugged in response. “Anyway,” she continued tentatively, “the things that’ve been going on in Zootopia have been building up to this for a while, so I think I can rest pretty sure that he’s not the one behind it. There’s just no way to know how he’s involved,” she finished.

She turned to look at Honey for backup. “I mean, you probably know more than I do, there,” she said.

Honey nodded politely and took her turn to speak. “We’ve been looking into his origins,” she started, “and I think we were just about on the cusp of something, but I’m not sure what it was. There was an agent that Jack had on it.”

“Wait,” said Finnick, “who’s ‘we’?”

“COR,” said Wilde as he inclined his head toward the fennec. “I think that’s what they said they were called.”

“It stands for Covert Operations and Recon,” said Hopps.

Wilde snorted mirthlessly. “Subtle. You should have gone for something flashier. Like BLADE or NIGHT or SHAFT.”

Honey smirked though spoke in an uninterested tone. “We tried but we couldn’t find words to fit the acronym. And SHAFT is too sexual.”

Wild scoffed. “So you just decided to half-ass it with COR? You even misspelled it.”

“They didn’t half-ass it!” said Hopps defensively. “And the spelling is cool and badass!”

“Yeah, whatever,” said Wilde as he yawned, “anyway, what the hell did you find out about this ‘Human’.”

Hopps looked at him askance for a moment, not understanding his seemingly unconcerned disposition. The news she had delivered was shocking, and she had imagined that the news would have taken a greater emotional toll on him. It certainly had on Finnick and everyone else! She knew that Wilde was capable of emotion or expression, especially after seeing his outburst in the van when he imagined the death of his son. She would have expected him to be grieving, not sitting here listening to her. Hell, she hadn’t even expected him to show up to the meeting today. It would’ve been perfectly understandable.

She eyed him critically for a moment—trying to figure him out—before she landed on what she was reasonably sure was what was going on—he was masking, just the same as she was. The same as that other Nick sitting in the corner was. The same as her twin was. She could only hope that in the coming days and weeks they all might come to trust one another—she had dropped her façade in order to get them to see who she really was. Hopefully, this sharing of information would go a long way toward fostering something of a bond among them. At least a start, she thought.

Hopps looked to Honey as the badger continued.

“As I was about to say before you criticised the name of our organisation,” she started, “there was an agent who was on it and trying to learn as much as he could about The Human. From what he was able to gather, the creature’s been here for quite some time. There was something odd he had recently discovered that he was going to tell us in the way of the creature’s origins, but we all had to evacuate Happy Town before that could happen.”

“Why doesn’t he just email it to you?” asked Wilde.

“We’re trying to avoid the leakage of sensitive information,” said Honey. “If any of our computers were hacked, our opposition would be able to gain an advantage. That’s why we keep our information on paper. Paper and flash drives.”

“Sounds like a lot could go wrong with that,” said Nick as he looked at Honey somewhat critically. Wilde nodded in agreement as he regarded the badger.

“The information may be more easily lost that way,” started Honey, “but it saves us in the long run. You all need to understand something,” she said as she stepped forward, taking command of the room, “we’re at war, now. Forget The Human for a second—Happy Town has been  _razed_.  _All_  of it. We have preds scattered around with no place to go and the city is hunting them. Us, too. We have to take advantage of any technology we have to keep ourselves alive. The information needs to be perishable so that if we’re caught—any one of us—we can mitigate the damage.”

“You should let them have it,” said Wilde dispassionately as he looked around, chuckling slightly.

Hopps cocked an eyebrow and regarded him oddly. She let out an uncomfortable laugh. “What?”

“I said,” he bit out more seriously as he leant forward, “‘You should just let them have it.’“

Everyone turned to look at him in confusion.

“And then . . . ?” asked Hopps, confused. She didn’t get what he was his suggesting. She stepped forward and regarded him with a mixture of confusion and anger.

“And get the hell out of here. There’s no reason for any of us to stay.”

She only stared at him for a moment before her disbelief at what he was saying turned to righteous indignation.

“We can’t just leave! There are animals out there who need our help!” She looked at him, her mouth agape at his suggestion. She wondered briefly whether this were a part of the act that he was putting on, but she found nothing in either his tone or his posture that suggested he was acting at all.

“It’s every mammal for himself!” he shouted back. “We tried fighting! We tried building up our own guard! We tried subversion! They  _annihilated_  our resistance!” He looked around the room at his friends for support but found them all looking at him askance. He hardened his resolve as he looked away. Maybe they wanted to fight, but  _he_  sure as hell didn’t. Not anymore.

“Zootopia is  _still_  our home!” she fired back. “We can’t say that we’re beaten until we’re beaten! We  _have_  to fight! This was the first strike in a war for the soul of Zootopia!”

“What war?!” he snarled. He stood and stalked forward so forcefully that he threw back his chair. “ _I’m_  not going to war to fight for that fucking city!” he said as he jammed a finger into his chest. “They can have it if they want!” he finished, waving his arm, as though to sweep the city far from him.

“No one said you had to fight if you didn’t want to,” started Hopps vehemently “but this war is happening whether you like it or not. Maybe you don’t think you’re at war with Zootopia, but they sure as hell think they’re at war with you. I mean, you were  _personally_  attacked last night. My guess is that I was supposed to die last night. Especially after falling from the cliff. They’re going to use that—or are using it, if you’ve seen the news—to hunt down the rest of the preds in the city. Right now, they are  _killing_  predators in the city left and right, and that’s something you  _have_  to care about!”

“Do I?  _Do_  I have to care?!” he shouted, though somewhat brokenly. “Because the last I checked, my son is-!” He broke off for a moment as he gathered himself. “All I know is that there’s nothing left for me back there.”

“How can you be so selfish?!” cried the bunny.

The rest of the animals there hissed, sucking air through their teeth.

Wilde eyed her coldly. “You fucking bitch,” he said quietly.

Hopps cringed, realising what she’d said.

He growled, dangerously. “My son is dead-”

“You don’t know tha-!”

“-and you tell me not to be  _selfish?!_ ” he finished, his tone rising slowly, the word “selfish” ending in a loud shout. He was seething, and if looks could kill, the little rabbit was certain she’d be as dead as a hammer.

“I just meant,” she pressed back bravely, “that you  _can’t_  be in this for yourself!” She was on the verge of tears herself. “There are mammals out there now who need your help! We need all the help we can get! I’m sorry, I didn’t mean to hurt you, it’s just that there are hundreds of other stories out there. Animals in need of closure. How many other father’s lost children last night? This is a fight for survival!”

“That’s easy for you to say. You didn’t lose anyone last night,” he said bitterly.

“Yeah, it is easy for me!” she exclaimed, “But only because the circumstances have forced me to be a pragmatist! How many times did I feel like breaking down? How many times did I want to end my life?! Hundreds of times! But I had to stop myself because I have visions of a better life!” argued Hopps.

“Not only that,” she continued, “but if I fell apart, that was one more child I couldn’t save, one more pred I couldn’t defend, one more animal who fell through the cracks. There were animals  _depending_  on me to do my job!  _One life_  was already too much for me to have on my conscience, and I’ll be living with Otterton’s death for the rest of my life. What about you? You have friends in the city! Friends who are looking for guidance and for a familiar face and for a reminder of something good in their lives. For them, that was Wilde Times. And you were the face of it. Hell, you were even among the leaders holding the convention when I got there. They’re going to be looking to you, and I’m sorry, but that’s the way it is! Could you live with yourself if one of those animals who depended on you for help died because of your failure to act?”

Wilde closed his eyes and thought for a moment. “No one’s going to die because I didn’t join you . . .” he started slowly. “Besides, they have the rest of you doing that for them. You . . . you don’t need me to stay.”

He was grasping at straws. He really just wanted to run away. Run away from the memories of the past. Run away from the pain and guilt he felt. If he settled down someplace alone, he might be able to forget. Or drink himself to death: Whichever came first so long as the pain disappeared.

“Nick,” said Hopps slowly as she came forward, “you have to stay here and fight. Maybe not going into battle, but you have to do something to help. I know you feel that.”

Honey strode up and joined Hopps, taking a standing place next to her. She looked at Wilde who seemed to be at a loss. She turned her gaze to Hopps who seemed to be trying to will him to stay.

“He doesn’t have to be a part of this if he doesn’t want to,” said Honey calmly as she put a paw on the bunny’s shoulder.

Honey and Hopps watched as Wilde turned from them and went back to his seat. He righted his chair and sat back down.

Hopps sighed, and the rest of the animals there felt embarrassment as they watched the conversation. If felt as though it were witnessing something intensely private.

“Don’t you care about the city?” said Hopps forlornly as he settled into his seat. “Zootopia can be something beautiful; like it was in the beginning.”

Wilde snorted as he crossed his arms. “No, I don’t give a shit about Zootopia. It was fucked up from the start.” He sat back and closed his eyes, breathing deeply as a pendulous darkness settled over him.

“Nick,” said Fangmeyer as he looked over at the fox, “you wanna think about your son? You don’t even know what happened to him. He could still be alive. Getting back into the city might give you a chance to look for him.”

Wilde cracked his eyes open. “Are you really trying to use my son against me? You really wanna go down that road with me?” he asked in a flat tone that was tinged with more than a hint of anger. “Animals were ripped to shreds on the beach. You saw them and I saw them.”

“Doesn’t a part of you want to know one way or the other?” pressed Fangmeyer.

“Would you?!” shouted Wilde as he stood up again, the horrific image of his son’s mangled remains flashing through his mind, the product of a nightmarish imagination. “Would you wanna go back and find parts of  _your_  cub?!”

“My cub was taken from me, too!” shouted Fangmeyer as he came up to Wilde, towering over him. Wilde refused back down and snarled angrily at the challenge.

“All I’m saying,” continued Fangmeyer tightly, though less challengingly as he saw Wilde was itching for a fight, “is maybe he escaped on one of the boats we saw on the water!”

“We all know how luck works for mammals like me,” he spat, anger palpable in his tone as years of justice denied and humiliation welled up inside him. “You lucked the fuck out, and we both know it!” he shouted. “You get to have your cub back, you bastard! Goddamn you!”

Wilde tore himself away as though he couldn’t stand the sight of the tall wolf. He breathed heavily for a moment before continuing. “If they want the city badly enough to kill for it, they can have it.”

“I’m in it for some good old fashioned payback,” said Wolford. “I know you were pretty keen on choking the shit out of that little bunny before when you thought she was the one who killed your kid. Even if it  _was_  indirectly.”

That was true, thought Wilde, but that was when his anger had been at its peak. Now, all he felt was defeat and resignation. He’d been well and truly beaten.

“If you run away,” started Hopps as she came forward, “do you really think Zootopia’s going to stop at Happy Town? Next on their list is the tri-burrow area. Bunnyburrow already has an amalgamation process in the works with Zootopia. They won’t stop until all preds are under control here. Already, there are laws coming up on the books that make it so that predators here have to wear collars. We have some very solid intel on that. Zootopia’s gunning for the Burrow next. Then Deerbrook. Then all the outlying cities and regions. They’re not going to stop until they dominate everything. If we want a place that’s free, a  _real_  Zootopia, we can make that place a reality. We can stop City Hall right here!” she finished, her skin flushing pink beneath her fur.

Wilde regarded her intently for a moment.

“You can’t be alone,” said Nick, and Wilde turned his glance to him. “It’s not in you to want loneliness. This is your pack,” he insisted, feeling strangely, as though he were speaking to himself in the third person. “If you don’t wanna fight, you don’t have to, but at least stay here with us.”

There was another pause, and Hopps could see that Wilde was wavering.

“I know that on some level,” started Judy, “you want to make the world a better place, too!”

Wilde regarded her contemptuously for a moment before turning his dejected gaze to the floor.

“The world can go  _fuck_  itself!” said Wilde tightly at a low volume as he clenched his fists.

Hopps caught Judy’s gaze and saw her twin nod slightly in reassurance.

“What about your friends?!” said Judy as she pointed to them. “What about the people in the rest of the city, trapped and imprisoned?!”

Wilde closed his eyes in thought as he looked at the floor.

“What about the mammals at Searton—My God!—what about them?! Don’t  _they_  deserve to be freed?! If you were there, what would you think about someone who chose not to help them in some  _small_  way?” pressed Judy.

“We’ve all lost someone,” said Wolford to Judy in Wilde’s defence. “I mean, don’t get me wrong: I think he’s a pussy—” Wilde snorted in spite of himself. “—but I get why he wouldn’t wanna join in. We all wanted to run away and just get the fuck out of there. “

Judy nodded sympathetically. “I know, but Zootopia’s our home,” she said, somewhat defeatedly as she implored Wilde to help them. She wanted to break through to him, and she had some idea of how to do that:

“It just seems like there are a lot of animals in Zootopia and Happy Town who could use any help they could get. Nick,” she said, addressing Wilde, “how many friends do you have back there? Even if you don’t fight, even if all you do is give medical help or do some spying or provide intel, isn’t it worth it to do something to help out?”

One thing she knew: This Nick wasn’t as cold as her Nick had been when she met him—this Nick had had a kit to take care of, and his heart was open to that angle. Right now, he was bitter, she thought, and she had to get around that. That notion in mind, she continued:

“Think of your son—How many cubs and kits just like him are there out there now who don’t have a father or mother because of this? How many do you think are out there, alone? How many children are there out there who  _do_  need your help? I don’t know what happened to your son, but we  _do_  know that there are children out there, right now, who are alone and afraid. And  _they_  are  _not_  beyond our help. Don’t you want to do something at  _least_  for them? When you were a kit, didn’t you wish for  _someone_  to fight for you? The deaths last night made orphans out of children: can you really say that it’s better to leave them to fend for themselves?”

Hopps listened carefully to Judy before turning to the fox before her.

Wilde ran a paw over his face as his mind went into deep thought. He was warring within himself. The little bunny hadn’t just touched his heart, she’d hit him in the gut. Even now, he was thinking back to his merciless beatings at the hands of prey creatures, ganging up on him. He remembered how he’d cried out for some sense of justice and fairness and found it totally lacking in the world around him.

At the same time, though, he didn’t want to save Zootopia, he wanted to burn it to the ground and salt the earth.

Then his thoughts turned to the pictures of Zootopia he’d seen in Judy’s phone. He may hate Zootopia, but having seen her pictures he was suddenly given a hint that things could be better.  _Much_  better than they were.

He called to mind a picture of his double and the little bunny sitting at a bar which brought to mind other pictures that his twin and the bunny had taken around the city. Things were bright, beautiful, and ideal. Picnics in the Savannah District looked pristine and beautiful.

It was so saccharine it nearly made him sick, and yet at the same time, he started thinking of himself and Vicky. And he started reimaging those images with him and Vicky and their son. The pain of the image of a life that could not be twisted in his heart. His life could have been a paradise—the picture of domestic tranquillity—if he’d lived in the Zootopia this bunny and fox had lived in.

It was in the midst of this sense of jealousy for what his counterpart and the little bunny had in their own world that he realised and understood where Judy was coming from: She didn’t have to hope that Zootopia could be better than it was because she already knew that it could be. She had  _seen_  it! It wasn’t some abstract, pie-in-the-sky wish for the future, she had only just come from this reality. She was asking him to stay and fight for a possible future—a better future for himself—and to fight for a society that would truly level the playing field.

He felt a weak sense of hope bloom in his heart.

When it came down to it, though, he really didn’t give a shit about the city. He didn’t really think it was worth his time to try. On the other paw, he wondered whether he could do it for his son. His whole life since the birth of his child had been spent on shielding him for much of what the world had to offer. He had created Wilde Times to give his kit a place to be a child while he could be a child. He’d schemed and racked his brain for any way to get ahead one more buck. More money meant more for his son.  _Everything_  had been for him. Even keeping his son out of the business of Wilde Times had been done to set his son on a path that would lead to success—on a life that  _didn’t_  have to rely on cheating and hustling for a living.

This new Zootopia that was being proposed was Wilde Times on steroids. In his mind’s eye, he saw prey and predator children playing together. He saw a world with no collars and no borders. He saw a world that wasn’t ghettoised. He saw a world in which mammals like him would be given a fair chance.

The answer was obvious, he realised, and it should have been obvious from the start. He was still bitter and terribly grieved, but he needed to do something. He would make this world a place his son would have loved.

It was also true, he thought as an aside, that his son might not be dead, but he had had his hopes dashed in the past, and he wasn’t prepared to open his heart to that possibility. He would believe it when he saw his son again with his own two eyes but left the possibility open in his heart.

He rubbed his face with a paw again and went back to his seat and sat down as Fangmeyer went back to his.

There was a pregnant pause, and everyone looked to him. Time seemed to stretch on as they waited.

At last, Wilde looked up from his paws and looked at Honey.

“Okay,” he said slowly as he sat forward, staring at the badger intently. “You say we’re at war? That means that you have to have some next steps in mind, right?”

There was an audible sound of relief that swept through the room, and Wilde looked around in annoyance at the other animals.

Honey nodded. “Yeah.”

“What do you have in mind?” he asked as he looked over at her incredulously.

“Well, first things first: We need to regroup. At the moment, the majority of our intelligence information is sitting in various locations around the city in dead drops or on paper in local offices of those who were members of COR. At the moment, we have prey agents collecting these bits and pieces of intel, scrubbing the dead drops, and gathering other pieces of information, too. We need to the intel back and set up a new headquarters. I’m thinking here in Bunnyburrow. But to get that information, our mission at this moment—and yours, too, if you decide to join—is to go  _back_  to Zootopia, extract our operatives—all of them—and put together everything we have.”

“Are you fucking  _nuts_?!” shout Wolford

“There ain’ no fuckin’ way I’m going back to that place!” exclaimed Finnick.

“Excuse me!” shouted Honey, forcefully taking control of the conversation. “I wasn’t finished: As I was saying, this is our next mission. To get to that point, we’re going to have to regroup and replenish ourselves. What I want—I should say, what I’m  _hoping_  for—is that you send out a text message to the other preds you know via the universal text and tell them to meet here at Bunnyburrow. Give them this address. Tell them that Sgt. Hopps is here, though—I don’t want anybody to be surprised or to get scared. If anybody gives you problems about that, show them a picture of me with Hopps. Send these messages to the Happy Town guards first since they’ll likely be the leaders of any preds out there who need help. Tell them that this place is a safe haven.”

“Just wanting to put this out there,” said Clawhauser who’d been uncharacteristically quiet throughout the conversation, “but if you do that, won’t it be most animals’ instinct to come here so they can kill her?”

“That’s why I’m gonna need all of you on this,” said Honey. “To mount this mission—or any offensive—we need bodies, and we  _especially_  need the guard. At least they’ve had some training in these matters. Oh! And when you text them, for the love of God, tell them to remove their collars.”

“How the hell are they gonna do that without dying?” asked Wilde.

“I’ve been coordinating with Jack Savage this morning  _and_  while we’ve been talking,” said Honey. “As soon as the groups you text let us know where they are, he can mobilise some animals to provide help and assistance. The tracking collars are dangerous, and the quicker we can get them off, the quicker we can save the survivors.”

“Why can’t he just hack into the signal of the tracking collars?” asked Clawhauser.

“He has been,” said Honey, “and he’s been reaching a lot of them. The problem is that the tracking ability in collars was only  _just_  coming into use. I mean, none of  _you_  were wearing them. I certainly hadn’t been. So that means that there are still others out there who are still lost with no direction.”

The others nodded.

“The point is,” started Honey, “if we wanna fight back, and I get a sense that that’s what we all wanna do, that means that we need our intelligence. To get our intelligence, we need our operatives within the city; to get to our operatives within the city, we need a plan and at least a count of the number of animals willing to do that. In order for us to have a large number of predators—consolidated, and all on the same page—we need to at least have them here; for that, I need you all to text the guard. But, please, listen to me once again: You need to emphasise, as hopeless as it may seem, Hopps’ innocence; you need to tell them where we are; you need to tell them that you vouch for her and for this plan; and you need to emphasise that it is safe here.”

“You’re gonna need to reach out to the rest of Bunnyburrow, too,” said Judy as she leant against Nick. “This house has a lot of room, but an entire city worth of predators have been displaced, and the whole city is going to have to prepare for that.”

“Right, yes, good thinking,” said Honey as she looked at Judy. She turned to Hopps, “Do you think you’d be able to get the rest of the city onboard with accepting refugees?”

“Probably not,” said Hopps.

“Ask mom and dad to help,” said Judy. “It’d sound a lot better to the city council and our neighbours if it came from them. Probably our entire family’s in on at least  _trying_  to help us. Call a city council meeting. Maybe even a town hall! Tell them about what’s going on in the city. Tell them your story, Judy! No one would be able to refuse you if you did!”

Hopps pondered it for a moment before a sudden thought came to mind. “How are we going to explain to my parents what you are?”

“I’ve been thinking about that,” interrupted Honey, “and I think if we just say that your twin here-”

“Call her, Carrots,” laughed Nick. “She likes to be called that.”

Judy flashed him a death glare, but Nick forced himself to stare straight ahead.

“Fine,” said Honey, “Carrots then. I think we should just say-”

“Wait,” said Judy as she turned from Nick quickly to regard the badger, “that’s not  _really_  going to be my name from here on out, is it?”

“You have a problem with your new name, Carrots?” asked Wilde.

“Yeah, Carrots,” said Nick, “you have a problem with your name?” He smirked at her and instantly recognised his cocky attitude as a bad move.

“I am going to kill you,” she said slowly as she stared daggers at Nick.

“Is she always that cute when she gets mad?” asked Wilde.

“I’m not  _cute_!” shouted Judy as she rounded on Wilde.

“Yeah, whatever, Carrots,” he smirked before both he and Nick broke into laughter.

“Would everybody,  _please,_  shut the fuck up!” shouted Honey. “Stop fucking interrupting me! As I was saying-”

The door opened at that moment as Judy’s mother popped her head in through the door. “I heard shouting, is everything alright?”

Honey instantly spun and came to stand in front of the doe.

“Oh!” said Honey in a calm voice as she moved to block Bonnie’s view of the whole room—especially the sight of the two Judys, “No, everything’s fine, we were just having an animated discussion. We’ll be out shortly to discuss something with you and the rest of your family. I expect your other children are still here?”

Her voice was simpering and the roomed looked at her in amusement at her quick change in attitude.

The elder bunny nodded carefully. “Yes?”

“Good,” said Honey sighing, “We’d like to have a meeting in an hour. Does that sound amenable to you?”

Bonny nodded slowly. “Yes, it does. I’ll let them know. Is . . . uh . . . is  _Judy_  going to be there?”

“She’ll be leading it,” said Honey, nodding. “My guess is that her you all wanna know exactly what’s been going on in the city. She owes you that much and will explain everything that’s been happening—especially her stance on helping preds.”

Bonny nodded and left the room.

Honey turned to the rest of the group and sighed, putting her head in her paws before looking back up at the gathered.

“So anyway,” said Honey at length, launching back into her previous train of thought as though there’d been no interruption, “my thoughts are that we should tell your parents,” she said as she spoke to Hopps, “that Carrots is your body double. Then you’ll tell them everything that happened. Even the awful events at Searton, the trial—everything,” she said, gesturing with her paws.

“Can my name please not be Carrots?” asked Judy pleadingly.

“Ugh!” grunted Honey as she looked over at the bunny, “No, your name is Carrots, because we are adults and I have a million things I need to coordinate right now!” she shouted. Her frustration crackled in the air and was nearly tangible.

“Well, hey, I just wanna say that no one’s going to believe that my name is actually Carrots!” said Judy as she shrank under the badger’s gaze.

“Fine!” said the badger. She hummed, looking around as she tried to pull a name out of the air. “Karen. Your name is Karen.”

“Oh!” shouted Nick, “Since we’re doing name changes, can I be, Zorro?”

“I’d just like to let everybody know that I’m still going to be calling her Carrots,” said Wilde.

“Everybody!” shouted Honey, “Close your fucking mouths! You!” she pointed at Judy, “You’re Karen! You!” she pointed at Nick, “Your name is Red, now.”

“Aww,” said Nick flatly, “but no one’ll believe that’s my real name.”

“Your real name’s gonna be Shit if you don’t shut the fuck up right this second,” said Honey as she strode forward, her patience well and truly at its end. “If you wanna change your name, figure it out for yourself but don’t take up my time with it. And  _you_ ,” she said as she gave Judy a hard look, “I changed my mind. We’re all gonna call you Carrots! Maybe next time don’t piss me off!”

Judy opened her mouth to protest but shrank back under the badger’s look of censure.

The badger turned, strode back to the middle of the room, and stood still as she rubbed her temples, trying to ease past a terrific headache that was pounding through the front of her skull.

“Now,” she said at last, “where the fuck was I?”

“You were just talking about how Carrots was going to play the part of Judy’s body double,” said Clawhauser.

Wilde and Nick snickered at the annoyance that was visibly growing on Judy’s face.

“Right,” said Honey, “so we’re all on the same page that Carrots is Judy’s body double because of her dangerous line of work. Nick,” she said to Wilde, “we’re gonna tell them that Red over here is  _your_  body double on account of everything that you’ve been doing and your dangerous line of work.”

“Sounds good,” said Wilde

Nick nodded, too.

To everyone in the room, the situation seemed a bit clearer, now; and things, in general, seemed less muddled than they were.

The Happy Towners and Nick and Judy now felt as thought they had a sense of direction. There was less confusion about the next steps that needed to be taken. And the coming arrival of new predators meant that soon, their position would be less of a lonely one. Soon, they would have friends shoring up their reserve.

“Well,” said Honey as she looked around for a moment at the others who were gathered, “if there’s nothing else to discuss—I think we have all the important stuff out in the open—I think we can all do as we planned. The first thing I want you all to do when this meeting’s over is get a hold of anyone you can through the text chain. When that’s through, we can all go up for breakfast.”

There was a silence in the room, and as the Happy Towners got on their phones and began texting those who were in their text groups, Judy took Nick’s paw. He looked down at her, a worried look on his face. It mirrored her own expression, she realised, and he was thinking the same thing she was—there was so much that could go wrong with all of this. They were in this together. And they knew that, in this scenario, they would likely go down together.

Nick looked up from Judy and around at all the group. He realised as he took them in that they were hiding themselves. In a world where the strong preyed on the weak, it was easy to see why they were doing so. They shouldn’t be masking here, though. He hoped there were some way for them all to be genuine with one another. Maybe in time, such a trust could be fostered. At the moment, however, he knew that Honey wasn’t done with either him nor Judy. He knew that she still needed to vet them. And though she wasn’t willing to question the veracity of his claims publicly in front of the rest of the group, he knew she didn’t want to cause further arguments that would delay her main objective which was to safeguard the organisation for which she worked.

Nick thought to himself as he watched the badger. The tone she’d taken with him and Judy when he’d tried to lighten the mood had told him that much. She was softer with and slightly more indulgent with Hopps, as he’d come to think of her. Even Wilde got somewhat of a pass on her anger. No, the reason why she wasn’t keen on his humour was because she wasn’t ready to allow herself to be comfortable with him. He viewed her in much the same way as he did Chief Bogo from his world—stern until you got on his good side and he saw you as part of her team.

She had to know she could rely on them and he had to do his best to convince her.

In that, he knew it would look a lot better if he made the first move and went to her.

He looked back the little bunny next to him and gave her paw a squeeze.

“I’m gonna go talk to Honey. Just real quick.”

“Why?” asked Judy.

He turned his head to the side and looked at the badger, and Judy followed his gaze.

“Because we’re not in the clear with her. Did you see what Hopps had to go through to get to the point where Honey trusted her? It’ll look better if we go to her.”

Judy thought for a moment and nodded. “Alright.”

He gave her paw another squeeze and let it go.

He hopped out of his seat and went over to the badger who was on her own phone, texting furiously.

“I’m extraordinarily busy, Red,” she said in a flat tone as he approached. She spoke without looking up, and Hopps gave them both a look.

He came up next to her, and Honey gave Hopps a look but nodded softly as she turned back to her screen.

“I said I’m busy,” she said curtly, annoyed at having to repeat herself.

“That’s fine. Just . . . when you have a chance, I need to talk about what we can do to help.”

“It’ll be about twenty minutes,” she said with a slight hint of anger in her voice.

“I can wait,” said Nick, matching her flat tone and crossing his arms.

 _That_  caught her attention. She glanced at him through her eyelashes, looking up from her phone and paused in her typing.

“Sure thing,” she said, noting his stance. “Just let me finish this text.”

She finished typing and sent her text minutes later and put her phone back in her pocket.

“Let’s talk out in the hall. Make it fast, I have a lot to do.”

As they reached the door, Honey turned back to the room. “I’ll be back in a moment,” she called before she and Nick went out.

Nick closed the door behind him and turned to find Honey regarding him expectantly. Her arms were crossed over her chest in a defensive posture. She didn’t trust him in the slightest, he could tell, and was likely not the type of animal to fall for his cons. Especially not if her entire career had been spent reading people. Since there was no point in hoodwinking her, even if it were to get her to trust him and Judy, he dropped  _his own_  façade as he understood that the only way to win her over was to be genuine.

“You don’t trust me,” he said as he looked at her.

She snorted.  _That_  was the understatement of the century.

“And you don’t trust Judy either,” he said as he put his paws together in front of him in a slightly plaintiff manner.

Honey twitched her whiskers. “No, I don’t. In fact, I may as well come clean—I’m seriously considering keep you and whoever that is in there under arrest until we can figure out who you really are.”

Nick’s temper flared at the notion of being put under arrest but kept his cool. The thought of Judy tied up or under heavy watch infuriated him, and he instinctively clenched his fists.

“What I was wondering,” said Nick tightly, “is if there were anything either of us could do to help.”

“No,” said Honey flatly. “I don’t work with animals I can’t trust. You and Carrots in there are a huge fucking question I have on my mind because there’s no way that I can accept that you’re creatures from another fucking universe.”

“Not creatures,” said Nick, “ _I_  am Nick Wilde and  _she_  is Judy Hopps.”

“Come up with a better story.”

“It’s true,” he said.

“No,” said the badger tersely, “it’s  _not_  true. You know why? Because it doesn’t make sense. When things don’t make sense, they’re not true.”

“What could I do to prove it?” asked Nick imploringly.

“Can you prove that there  _is_  such a thing as multiple universes?” she asked as she cocked an eyebrow.

“No,” said Nick desperately.

“Then you’re shit out of luck,  _Red_. Your case begins and ends with that.”

“Then how did we know about the night howlers and what they did?” he asked.

“Simple: You’re spies working for City Hall.”

“Who both got captured?” he asked. “Okay, say we were spies: Why would Judy—the one you think is a spy—go to Wilde Times?”

“I haven’t worked out the details, but what I’ve said is more plausible than multiple universes,” she said.

Nick thought hard for a moment. “Ask me anything!” he finally said.

“You really wanna play a game of twenty questions now?”

“What I want,” said Nick, “is for you to trust us.”

Honey was taken aback for a moment. She didn’t know what his game was, but she would have needed to question him, anyway.

To Nick it appeared that she seemed to be thinking. She looked at him.

“What colour is the sky?” she asked suddenly.

Nick looked at her askance. “What?”

“You said for me to ask you anything,” she replied, “what colour is the sky?”

When again he didn’t answer, Honey snarled. “Just answer my questions straight! What colour is the sky? Don’t read into it, just answer!”

“Blue,” he answered quickly, somewhat unsure of himself.

“What colour is grass?”

“Green,” he said.

“What’s my name?”

“Honey.”

“What’s you’re name?”

“Nick.”

“Nick what?”

“Nick Wilde,” he said, confused at what she was doing.

“Are you and Carrots married?”

“No.”

“How did the two of you meet?”

“We met when I was hustling an ice cream parlour run by elephants.”

Honey smirked. “What scam were you running?”

Nick sighed. This was really gonna look bad when it came to his credibility. “I melted down a Jumbo Pop with Finnick’s help, then we went to Tundra Town and froze the juice into Pawpsicles and sold them to lemmings, then sold the old sticks to construction workers in Little Rodentia.”

Honey bent over double and started laughing. She wiped away a tear as she looked back up at him. “And now you’re telling me to believe you when you say you came from another universe?” she asked while still rocked by giggles at the ridiculousness of his story.

She’d read in his stance that he was a hustler who often wasn’t caught. There was absolutely no reason for a fox to be in an ice cream parlour meant for the larger folk, so logic dictated that he had been running a scam of some sort. She knew it right off the bat.

She knew Wilde was a hustler, too, but she also knew that he ran his hustles to make the world a better place in Happy Town.

At last her chuckles died down, and Nick spoke to her seriously.

“I’m not a hustler, now! I joined the ZPD with Judy’s help!”

“The same Judy you were running a scam with?” she returned as she raised an eyebrow.

“We met while  _I_  was scamming, not while we were scamming together! She was on the ZPD and she caught me! Then we had to go on and solve the Missing Mammals’ Case!”

That seemed to catch her interest, and her amusement ceased instantly.

“What’s the Missing Mammal’s Case?” she asked curiously.

“Well, mammals were going missing in the city,” started Nick, “and Judy was on the case to find one of them. Otterton. We were tracking him down and we were led to Mr. Big who was paying him for his daughter’s wedding. He told us to talk to Mr. Manchas who was actually there when the incident took place.”

“What happened?” asked Honey.

“Manchas said that Otterton went savage and attacked him. Judy and I didn’t find this out until later, but one of Bellwether’s goons shot him through the open window of Mr. Big’s limo.”

“Shot who?”

“Otterton. We went to go talk to Manchas who told us about the night howlers, but we didn’t know what those were, and before he could tell us, he was also shot with night howler serum and went savage.”

“You saw this happen?”

“We didn’t see him get shot, but we saw the aftermath, and he attacked us. After that, Judy and I went searching for Manchas. It turns out that-”

“Wait, back up—why were you looking for Manchas?”

“Oh, sorry: So after he attacked us, Judy managed to trap him, but when we got there with the rest of the ZPD, he was gone.” Nick was getting more animated now.

“How?” asked Honey.

“He was taken away by two wolves to Cliffside Asylum.”

“How’d you find that out?”

“Bellwether helped us to figure it out.”

Honey looked at him strangely. He was starting to involve people she knew into his story that seemed to be getting more convoluted by the second, and yet he seemed so earnest about it.

“Why would she help you?”

“At the time, we didn’t know she was in on it. Plus, the animal who was trapping the savage animals was Mayor Lionheart.”

“What?!” shouted Honey. “Lionheart was  _never_  mayor!”

“He was where we came from!”

“And why was he doing that?! Why would he be kidnapping ferals?!”

“He knew that it would look bad for him and for preds everywhere, so he wanted to hide the problem until there was a cure.”

“Why would it make him look bad?”

“Because only preds were being targeted.”

Honey gave him a hard look. “Your know, story has got to be one of the dumbest cover stories a spy has  _ever_  told me to try and get out of being jailed or worse! It’s ridiculous and  _totally_  unbelievable!” she shouted angrily. After a beat: “So, what happened next?”

“Well, we followed the clues all the way to Cliffside. Lionheart was there, looking for answers and you were working there as a doctor. Judy recorded a candid conversation between you and him on her phone, and the two of you were arrested. After that, Judy gave a speech that nearly ripped the city apart along predator-prey lines, and I’m never letting her live that down,” he said with a smirk on his face. “After that, Judy left her job as a cop and I went back to hustling. Then when she realised that night howlers were the name of a flower with psychotropic properties, she came back and cracked the case. Weaselton-”

“Wait,” said Honey, “you mean Duke Weaselton?”

“Yeah. He’d been smuggling the bulbs into the city. We found some rams were cooking the stuff down into a sort of serum and injecting that into pellets that could be absorbed through the skin. We gather the evidence—well, as much as  _I_  could after Judy crashed the train car they were using as a base into the dead end of a subway tunnel.”

Honey only regarded Nick with a look of total disbelief before he continued.

“And then we managed to escape through the museum of natural history. Bellwether tried to stop us, but she failed, and then ZPD showed up and managed to arrest her after we caught her confession on tape.”

Honey was looking at Nick intently, her paw on her chin. “And then?”

“Well, then Mayor Bellwether went to jail, Lionheart stayed in jail, and Judy went back to the ZPD and convinced me to join up.”

“So wait, was Bellwether mayor, or was Lionheart mayor?”

“Lionheart was mayor and Bellwether was assistant mayor; then, when he went to jail, Bellwether became mayor. She knew how to play us. She led us right down the path that would lead us to think that Lionheart was behind the missing mammals; and while he was  _technically_  the reason why they were missing, he had nothing to do with Bellwether’s scheme. The fact that he  _was_  hiding them was just lucky for Bellwether used it to make it look as though he were part of a larger crime than he actually was.”

“I’m not following the train of logic here—how did Judy, I mean Carrots, know that Weaselton was sneaking the bulbs into the city?”

“Judy caught him stealing the bulbs from a shop.”

“Why didn’t she think of Weaselton right away when you heard from Manchas about the night howlers?”

“For two reasons: One, all Manchas said was that Otterton suddenly started moaning about the night howlers in the back of the limo. Two, all Judy knew about the night howlers were their Latin names. Midnicampum something or other. It wasn’t till she came back here, to Bunnyburrow, after she screwed up the city, that she heard Gideon Grey say that he and his friends always used to call them night howlers. Before that, Judy and I thought that Otterton had been referring to wolves when he said night howlers.”

Honey nodded. “Night howlers. Wolves. Yeah, I can see that.”

She regarded him appraisingly for a moment as she mulled over what he’d just told her. The story was too genuine for him to have made it up on the spot, and everything from his tone to his openness told her that he was being open with her. Still, it just didn’t wash. Animals didn’t just pop in from other universes!

But now hang on a second, she thought. What about the human? He was completely and totally alien to their world. Perhaps she was dismissing the fox and his mate too soon. But she would need to give them her trust slowly. Give them an inch, and see how well they handled it.

“Alright,” she said carefully, “I need to talk to Carrots. Send her out here.”

They both went over to the door, and she stood by, watching as the fox went over to Judy. She honed her ears to listen carefully to what he told her.

“Honey wants to talk to you,” was all he said, and she realised that he didn’t want to contaminate her story in any way.

He turned back to the door and gave Honey a knowing look which she returned as the bunny reached her and stepped out into the hall. The badger gave him a small smile and closed the door.

-.-.-.-

“She’s like a living, breathing lie detector!” Judy complained as she slumped at the table. She and Nick were in the upstairs kitchenette eating a small breakfast.

They were both counting down the minutes for the big meeting later. The others were downstairs in the large communal dining room. Nick and Judy had wanted their privacy and told Honey where they’d be if they were needed.

“You could have warned me,” she pouted as she looked across the table at Nick.

He let out a regretful sigh. “The only way we’re gonna get her to trust us,” said Nick, “is if we’re honest with her. No holding back. If we’d said something earlier about the night howlers, someone might’ve been able to figure things out. Anything we know might be useful.”

“You still could have told me she was gonna interrogate me!” said Judy, somewhat annoyed.

“But I couldn’t! Not without it looking to her like we really  _were_  trying to hide something from her. I know you,  _Carrots_ —if I’d said anything, you’d’ve clammed up faster than a clam.”

Judy quirked an eyebrow and sat up straight as she looked at him. “Yeah, I guess,” she murmured.

She’d made herself a salad out of some ingredients she found in the fridge. She munched on it absentmindedly as she thought through things in the cold light of day.

At last, she spoke. “Nick, what’re we gonna do here?” she said as she swallowed a mouth full of lettuce.

He sipped his coffee and chewed some toast as he wondered the same thing.

“I guess stay here and help in whatever way we can until we get back.”

“There’s gotta be some way for us to get home!” she said desperately though to no one in particular. She was racking her brain as she tried to understand their current situation.

“Well,” said Nick as he took another sip of coffee, “unless you know how to punch a hole through space-time and the fabric of the universe, I don’t think we can do that.”

“I don’t get it? I mean, why of all nights did it happen the night before last?”

“Maybe we’re just that good at lovemaking?”

Judy quirked a smile, her serious façade evaporating for a moment.

“It would explain a lot,” he said as she laughed shyly.

She giggled and reached forwarded across the table. He leant forward too, and they took each other’s paws as she answered. “Something told me that you’d be good at-”

She stopped speaking abruptly and took her paws away from Nick. Her ears twitched, and when Nick gave her a curious look, she whispered, “My brother’s coming!”

“Which one?” he breathed.

Nick spoke just as a rather tall and strong-looking bunny stepped into the kitchen and eyed the two of them.

He glared at them for a moment as though mulling his options.

Judy thought back to when they’d finally all come out of the conference room and given her family their strange explanation: when it was revealed that there were two Judys and that she was a bodyguard and double for the other.

Judy hadn’t thought it was much to worry about, but she had noticed that several of her siblings were missing.

As Jasper stared at them now, she realised that he hadn’t heard the explanation that she was his sister’s guard.

She took him in from head to foot. His paws and clothes were covered with dirt. He’d been out working in the field in spite of the cold November morning, and his white fur was damp with sweat which moistened long-sleeved shirt he was wearing over a white sleeveless one. Gloves were poking out his back pocket, and the finely hatched red and white plaid pattern swayed around his waist, untucked, as he stepped softly across the floor.

He stalked into the kitchen, staring daggers at Nick as though he were an intruder.

Unbidden, Nick’s hackles rose, his red fur standing on end along the back of his neck, as he sensed a tension in the bunny’s eye contact that set his teeth on edge.

Jasper went over to the fridge and opened it, scowling when he saw that it was nearly empty.

“Did you use all the lettuce?” he asked, his tone conveying indignity and annoyance.

“I used the rest of it to make a salad,” said Judy gently, not wishing to rouse her brother’s anger.

“Fuck,” the rabbit whispered to himself.

“There are carrots!” she said helpfully.

He shook his head gently. “Too much sugar. I gotta go back out there and it’ll burn off too quickly.”

His voice was clipped. Judy could tell that he was trying to be civil. She also knew from his tense stance and mien that he was on the edge of snapping. Dad had probably told him to be kind and helpful, even if it went against his nature. The trouble with that was that resentment, Judy knew, had a way of simmering just beneath the surface.

“Jasper,” she said as he still refused to look at her, “I think we should talk. One on one.”

He closed the fridge with a slam, and Judy cringed as he regarded her with a harsh gaze.

She was still in her policeman blues, and she knew she was gonna need a change soon but had hesitated at taking anything that belonged to Hopps, though it had been freely offered when her twin had approached her at the end of the meeting.

She knew she needed a wash, anyway, and would probably take one as soon as many of the preliminaries were out of the way; however, there was too much to do, and she didn’t feel she had the time to take care of any of those basic necessities. Information was coming in too quickly, and she harboured a fear that she might miss something if she took too long to shower. In part, because she was certain Nick would offer to shower with her, and she was pretty sure she knew how  _that_  would end.

But no, rather than enjoying a shower with her mate, she had elected to simply come upstairs for some privacy and some breakfast.

And now, instead of privacy, she had a very angry looking older brother looking down at her as if she were the most vile thing on Earth at her quiet suggestion that they talk. She wanted to clear the air with him, but it seemed, solely based on his expression, that he wasn’t willing to do that in the slightest.

“Why?” he asked tightly.

She sighed at his tone, and slid forward, her fingers linked in a gesture of supplication. “You’re mad at me.”

“Mad? The fuck should I be mad for?” he said sarcastically as he took a slight step back. “My sister’s just gone and betrayed our whole family to become a lousy predfucker!”

Nick growled and shot up from his seat, instantly. “Now you wait a minute!” he shouted.

Jasper stalked over quickly and pounded the table with his fist so hard that the settings jarred and clattered. Judy jumped, letting out a tiny squeak of fear as he did so and sat back in her chair as lightning seemed to crackle in her brother’s eyes.

“I ain’t got  _nothing_  to say to you, fox,” he said, at last venting his anger. “And  _you_ ,” he said rounding on Judy, “you’re fucking dis _gusting_. Is that the talk you wanted to have? Because that’s all I have to say to either of you!”

Judy pinned her ears back and her pink ears deepened in colour. She looked down as tears threatened to flow down her face, and she was clearly choking back emotion as she sat with her hands clasped around her purple coffee mug.

Jasper noted her reaction and couldn’t help but feel a bit badly, but at the same goddamn time no, he fucking didn’t! She’d wanted him to be honest with her, and here he was watching his sister nearly sob . . . because of  _him_  and what  _he’d_  said. But damn it, on the other paw she was married to a fox! There was  _no_  reconciliation with that, was there?!

His emotional state seemed to settle on anger rather than guilt, and he sat down at the table, making a big show of the act as he clacked the chair’s legs on the ground loudly as he sat down. He reached forward and took a slice of warm toast before he grabbed for the butter knife.

Nick’s eyes widened. “Hey-!”

“Shut up fox! I don’t wanna hear  _nothin’_  from you!” he shouted as he went back to buttering his toast.

“But-!”

“Can it!” he shouted again as he started buttering it.

Nick sighed. “Okay, but I was just gonna tell you that I licked that knife,” he said in a rush.

Judy, who’d been looking down into her coffee in shame spat out the sip of coffee she’d just taken.

In a flash, Jasper reached across the table and grabbed Nick by his shirt.

“Don’t!” shouted Judy as she jumped up on the table and tried to separate them.

“You stay out of this, Jude! Me an’ your mate have something we need to settle, male to male!”

“Judy’s a big bunny and can make her own decisions!” growled Nick as his own paws broke the bunny’s hold on him.

“She can make her own decision,” said Jasper “but you know as well as I do that she’s wide eyed! Zootopia was eating her alive! We all heard about what was happening to you on the news! Everyone’s been talkin’ ‘bout how you’re dead.”

He rounded on Nick.

“And it seems like the city isn’t the only thing eating her alive.”

“Nick’s a perfect gentleman!” she said vehemently as she went over to her brother.

“God, Judy,” said Jasper as he turned to her, “being with a fox is just disgusting and you  _know_  it! But it wouldn’t have been as bad if you’d picked a local like Gideon! I’m just trying to look out for you!”

“You’re only looking out for your prejudice!” shouted Nick. He growled and put a possessive arm around Judy as he came around the table.

“Cut me some fucking slack!” said Jasper as she shouted back. “Are you gonna tell me that it didn’t cross your minds, too?!”

He looked between the both of them for a moment, each of them remaining silent as his accusation hit home.

“I knew it,” he said as he regarded his sister. “So how about you cut  _me_  some fucking slack?!”

He turned to Nick as he spoke and eyed him cruelly. “You think I  _wanna_  feel this way about my sister? You think I  _wanna_  look at her and think about how sick this is? Let’s face it,” he said as he turned back to Judy, “Dad’s already said that you’re family, and his word is law around here. You know that. That means that you’re my sister through thick and thin, and you bet your ass I’ll stick up for you, but me and you boyfriend here have something we need to settle between us,” he finished as his eyes moved from his sister to the fox next to her.

He turned to face Nick, looking at the fox straight on as he spoke. “Now, you listen: she picked you over the laws of nature and her family blood. We’re the ones who had to come over to her side because she made it clear to Mom and Dad that she was gonna pick you over us. Think about that for a fucking minute—that means that she cares about you more than her own family.” He spoke tightly, as though trying to hold back his emotion. “So you mark my words—we’ll always be here for her: we’re her family and she has us forever, even if she chooses you. She cares and loves you a lot. She’d have to to be willing to give us up.”

Nick stood dumbfounded as the bunny continued.

“I’ll let you live because she would never forgive me if I did anything to hurt you,” he said as he stole a quick glance at Judy. “I get that. But I wanna tell you that if you break my sister’s heart, I will find you and give you a reckoning that’ll leave you in pieces. We’re the Hopps family, and we take care of our own.”

He gave them each a fierce look before he turned and forced himself to walk away, a torrent of unresolved emotions whirling inside him as he went back outside, forgetting his snack.

-.-.-.-

_10:37 AM_

The meeting wasn’t what  _anyone_  in the Hopps family had been expecting. Judy had taken the floor with the help of a badger and proceeded to recount the most horrific story about her time in the city to the large gathering of relatives including a large array of siblings and cousins. Many of them had been confused about news reports that morning out the Zootopia that had noted the death of Judy while in their own homes that morning and were more than shocked and elated to discover when they arrove at the Hopps residence that she was alright.

They muttered to each other in the wake of the tale she told them. Several of her sisters, along with her father and mother, came up and hugged her afterward, telling her that everything was alright as she wept at the overwhelming support for everything she’d been through.

She had watched—their mouths had hung agape as she shared the horrors which she’d witnessed and endured during her tenure at the ZPD.

Jasper had been taken by surprise when he came downstairs at ten to be told that “Carrots,” whom he’d apparently met upstairs with “Red,” was supposedly his sister’s body double. He harboured a sneaking suspicion, however, that all was not as it seemed. For one thing, this double argued too passionately on behalf of his sister and seemed to know things about him that only family should. Finding out that his “real” sister wasn’t actually mated to a fox did nothing to assuage the sense of protectiveness he felt over this other bunny.

Blood knew blood, and he had learned over time to trust his instincts. In spite of the irrational conclusion he seemed to be reaching, he sensed that somehow Carrots was his sister, too—that she was, in fact,  _Judy_. There was no way an animal could learn to fake  _all_  the little intricacies of an individual’s life, and Carrots had all of his sister’s mannerisms down to a T. Even when no one was looking, he noticed that she acted exactly like Judy. Nothing was stiff, nothing was perfect—which is what a professional would have gone for. Carrots’ manners were genuine, and no one could fake that.

He had looked over at her doubtfully. He contemplated her, at last taking away his gaze when his “real” sister took the floor in the large common room connecting all the offshoot tributes.

As his sister told her story, he found himself consumed by a profound desire for revenge. He had always distrusted the animals who lived in the bigger cities. Especially in recent years when they’d been trying to take away Bunnyburrow’s relative autonomy. As far as he was concerned, his family farm—and indeed the whole tri-burrow area—had a culture distinct from and better than that the richies in the city.

What was odd to him, though, was that in the wake of her story he found himself emotionally on the side of the predators.

He identified naturally with the prey animals of the city. Or thought he would. And when he saw and heard what they were doing, some of the more innocuous biases Hopps recounted, he tried to justify it to himself—that somehow these predators, must have done something to merit what happened to them.

He had wanted to look at the prey animals and find in them some justification, some good reason, why they had been so antagonistic, so brutal, to the predators in the city. It was in his blood to have a natural distrust of predators, and yet as he contemplated those who stood amongst them in the group around him, he found his mistrust belied by their manners and their looks. None of them appeared to be cruel or vicious. Cubs and kits, certainly, didn’t deserve to die as his sister explained had happened to several animals for being too “uppity”. There was nothing that could justify what had happened to any of them.

When he looked around at the preds, he expected to see something of the arrogance which he believed accompanied everyone from the cities. As he observed them, however, he saw their faces were worn with care and worry. Their clothes were frayed along the edges. They were poor. Or, at least, poor _er_  than he would have expected.

He watched her face as she told her story, and also eyed the looks of his brothers and sisters wore. They were sharing his mixed emotions.

The preds, however, stayed silent as she spoke; but in their eyes, he saw a reflection of the fear and anger and hatred—a response to society’s treatment of them all their lives. It was the source of their frustration, and it  _had_  been all their lives. All of these preds had suffered violence and disenfranchisement at the hands of the prey animals in the city, and though he was still unnerved by it, he understood how Carrots could have come to fall in love with a fox. If Red—as they had come to call him—were half as heroic as the predators his Judy was describing, he could see his own future daughter falling in love with one. Perish the thought, but he could see it.

When she told of the human she’d met, he had no idea what the hell she was describing, and he found himself at a total loss as to how to imagine the creature.

He had turned his gaze to Honey and watched her face as she listened to the story. Something in the way the light shone around her, the scars on her arms and shoulders, and the tough look on her face won a certain admiration form him. She had a heart like his, he could tell. She got her paws dirty, and wasn’t afraid of hard work, and the way her dirt green sleeveless shirt hung about her voluptuous body, somehow a perfect complement to her magical black and white fur.

She looked his way and gave him a slight smile.

His face remained impassive but he gave a slight nod in return as he looked back to his sister.

Not too long into her story, Jasper’s mouth fell open as Judy described exactly what had taken place at Searton and what had happened on that bloody day in December. The cull painted a brutal picture that he was scarcely able to believe. He saw how genuine she was, though, and he could see through her earnestness that what she was saying was true. She was straightforward and honest as she described the events in brutal detail, and he was beside himself anger at the bloody injustice.

The moment that had really caught his attention, aside from her description of the mysterious creature called “The Human,” was when his sister mentioned her suicide attempt.

Her head was downcast, and she began to sob as she told them of the desolation, the hopelessness, and the terror that had consumed her. The cheer and optimism with which she’d been hoping to preserve as she fought crime in the city evaporated as quickly as virga in the air over a searing dessert. She told them about the plants she’d chosen, their greens, blues, and soft whites a contrast to the deadliness they contained.

It would’ve been a brutal death, racking her with seizures, heart attacks, and pain.

Her tears kept coming, and she found herself unable to face her large family as she broke down and told them of that dark hour in her life. There was not a sibling among them who didn’t want to rush forward and hold her, and he and several others made their way toward her, and he felt himself choke emotionally under the weight of her suffering.

He watched his mother and father start forward only to stop, as did he, along with those others who had come forward when Honey quickly dashed to the front of the assembly, put her arm around his sister, and continued the story for her. The tale needed to come out. It needed to be set free so that it could be attacked and reshaped. Its monstrosity needed to be reformed, and while her story was the beginning, he would do the best he could to give it a happy end.

Their little cop was crying as Honey told them what had happened in the aftermath. Jasper didn’t know if it was fear or shame that brought his sister to tears, but He was glad she was telling them. Had he heard about any of this, Dad’s orders or not, he’d’ve marched straight into the city and taken his sister home, and he’d’ve brought his brothers along with him. The Hopps boys were a rowdy bunch, and he wondered briefly to himself whether Zootopia could handle them. Already he was plotting in his head all the ways in which he’d take the city down with relish.  _Nobody_  made his sister cry.

Except him, he realised to his chagrin. He was very quickly realising that he was going to have to have a change of mind when it came to Carrots. He looked over at her and the fox as they sat whispering to each other, the fox’s arm about her so.

Honey had saved his sister’s life, and he owed her a debt of gratitude for that, and he knew that his brothers and sisters would feel the same.

Jasper was the eldest of the boys who’d stayed behind to help out, and as the eldest of those at home, his word in there was second only to his father’s. Many of his brother’s had all gone out to start warrens of their own, and his sisters—those who’d left—had all married into good families. For the most part.

As he listened to Honey’s request for families in Bunnyburrow to open up their homes, he knew that his family would follow her lead; if not for the preds and their families then at least for Judy and what the city had done to her. His older brothers would be onboard in a split second if they heard half of what he’d just heard, and he knew that his sisters would be good enough to nag their husbands into joining. Any buck worth his salt wouldn’t let his wife go unhappy for long. Blood ran thicker, after all.

Honey’s subsequent request was a no brainer—that was, to have not just a group of Happy Towners come to Bunnyburrow to find refuge, but  _all_  of them.

His parents, he knew, had already thrown their doors open to the preds who were on their way even at that moment—but their space was limited, and they would be packed to the brim, even doubled up, in no time. That’s where his siblings would be of use.

That’s also where his siblings would probably have the biggest problem. At the same time, he was certain he could be convincing when he spoke to them. He could get his brothers to listen to him—especially if they knew what Judy had gone through and what was going on in the city.

When the meeting was over, his first order of business was going to be to get on the horn with everyone he knew by whatever means were available to him and let his absent siblings know what had been decided. He wasn’t sure how he would since the phone lines were being watched, but he knew that he would have to. Probably just use whatever encryption the preds were using to send text messages.

He made a mental note to buy a cell phone.

-.-.-.-

_12:39 PM_

Nick and Judy were in the upstairs kitchen again. The downstairs meeting had turned into a love fest of sorts after both Honey and Hopps had spoken to them. Hopps’ siblings surrounded her as she went through the details of her ordeal with them in a less formal manner while also filling them in on the terrible things she’d witnessed in the city on a simple day to day basis. Her description of a declawing procedure had nearly everyone wincing in sympathetic pain as they closed in on her.

Judy felt particularly out of place seeing that, and felt an acute loneliness—denied the emotional support her doppelgänger had all around her. Her family, Judy thought, been told that she wasn’t really their kin, and it seemed that many were ignoring her. She was just another rabbit who was mated to a fox. Now that she wasn’t their family, it seemed that many of her siblings felt they had a right to treat her just as they would have if she were anyone other than their family. Not that Judy minded in the long run: at least Hopps was getting the support she so sorely needed after such a long time of living alone.

Jasper had been particularly conscientious about making sure Hopps was alright, giving her his love, before leaving to do some business or other in town.

Judy knew that her family would have questions about what their own role in the current situation would be, and Honey and Hopps were the only two who were truly capable of giving them the answers they needed. The work which the two had been doing now served to back up and bolster their argument while also obligating the whole family to do as they asked.

Some of the others seemed to have a mind like Jasper’s, and they went out to go contact their other siblings by word of mouth. The necessity of their help was undeniable: There was no way an entire subsection of a city was going to be able to be displaced without some chaos. Things needed to move quickly; and to that end, the word was going out through the city. Judy was certain that by nightfall, the city council would be convening an emergency meeting.

Slowly but surely, the wheels were turning. The predators had willingly shared the smartphone app that encrypted their messages, and her siblings—those with actual smarphones—were quick to send the app and exhortations to use it to all the others who hadn’t been able to make the meeting. Information needed to be able to flow quickly, and that simply wouldn’t be possible using coded over-the-phone messages.

Throughout the meeting, Judy had seen the way that Jasper periodically gave both herself and Nick appraising looks, and again just before leaving. She wasn’t sure what it was, but it felt as though he were trying to decide something about the two of them. She knew that, for whatever reason, she wasn’t out of the woods yet as far as things with him went.

The stress of working out the logistics of what needed to be done in order to shore up support for the incoming predators was getting to her, and watching her family talk and laugh and support her lookalike was heart-wrenching even though she’d agreed, for practical reasons, to the charade.

And it was for that reason she’d left the group and was upstairs chatting with Nick when the first predators arrove.

The doorbell rang as she was speaking, and Judy looked away from Nick as one of her younger sisters passed by the kitchen to the front door. Judy had just turned back to Nick to finish her thought when a loud scream erupted from the hall.

Nick jumped and Judy cringed at the terrified cry.

“What the hell?!” shouted Nick as he jumped out of his chair and dashed around the table.

Judy had already rounded the bend into the hallway as he reached the hall.

As he tore round the corner, he crashed into someone nearly his size that had him falling backward.

“I’m sorry-” he started quickly though cut himself off mid-apology when he saw it was Jasper. He fixed the buck with an impassive stare as the bunny lowered his ears and scowled.

Jasper fixed Nick with a hostile glare. “What the hell was that?!” he shouted angrily.

“How should I know? You think I could scream like that?” said Nick.

“You want me to answer that, City Slicker?” returned Jasper as he raised an eyebrow.

“Guys!” shouted Judy in a bid for attention before turning back to her sister.

They both turned to see Judy crouched before a slight-looking bunny. Young, perhaps sixteen or so.

“Fay, you’re fine. Everything’s fine!” said Judy reassuringly as she tried to soothe the young lady.

Both males turned their gazes from Judy to the entryway. The door was half opened, and the smaller bunny, crouched and huddling, gestured to it with one paw as she kept her face and eyes covered with the other.

Judy inclined her head toward the door, indicating for the boys to check it out as she rubbed her sister’s arms in a bid to calm her.

Nick watched as Jasper strode forward confidently, and Nick tailed him and watched as he reached the door and opened it wide. All Nick could see were two giant stalks that seemed to stretch beyond the allowance of the doorframe: it was too low for him to see exactly what species it was, but he knew immediately that it was a bear.

As Nick approached, he had to crane his neck upward. He realised even before he got too far that he was looking at the legs of a Kodiak bear. It was probably the largest creature the terrified bunny had ever seen in her life.

Bunnyburrow was filled with animals of similar stature—from foxes to weasels to badgers, all of them were with more or less within each other’s measure. The wolves at their tallest stood at five feet and a quarter—about a foot taller than Nick—and were probably the largest animals they’d become accustomed to seeing. This bear stood at a good eight feet with razor sharp claws and teeth. No wonder the little bunny was frightened!

Jasper merely eyed the bear with dull surprise and coolly looked around outside behind the tall animal to see a large group of twenty or so preds obscured by the bear’s legs.

The bunny quirked an eyebrow as he turned his attention back to the bear.

“You and any other bears are gonna have to go round the back,” he said. Jasper’s ears twitched as he heard several feet pounding the floor as they came up from behind him.

His siblings had come running from upstairs at the sound of the scream.

“What is it?” he heard his mother ask as she walked up, a worried look on her face.

Nick stood aside as she came up even to her son. Judy was walking with her sister, quickly steering her into the kitchen. Nick whipped around and followed the pair, trying to clear out of the hallway so that others would be able to come inside.

Jasper shook his head as he spoke to his mother. “Nah, it’s nothing, Mom. Some preds are here and Fay just got scared is all. You guys out there!” he called out as he looked back outside, “can come in through the front door  _only_  if you are five feet or smaller. We don’t have front halls built for anything much bigger than that. But! If you come round back, we can take you larger fellers in through there.”

“You have a larger entrance?” asked Nick as he poked his head out from the kitchen.

“Technically it’s a loading dock,” said Jasper as he turned to the fox.

As the preds started making their way in, Jasper and his mother flattened themselves against the wall and the other siblings made their way back into the living room.

“Why do you have a loading dock that comes up to your house?” asked Nick.

“Because maybe our storage area is underground for when we order seeds and roots and mulch in bulk. Hey, Mom:” he started as he looked at his mother, “Are there rooms made up for them?”

The preds shuffled in past them murmuring to each other while others looked around at home. They all looked uncomfortable, and it was clear that the part of the message mentioning that this was Hopps’ parents’ house was not lost on them. Their furtive looks told Jasper that there was still a lot of distrust in them, and he couldn’t blame them. These preds either really trusted Wilde or had nothing left to lose in order for them to come here at all.

His mother turned back to him when they’d all passed.

“Yes, I had your brothers on it. They should be ready now. Were you able to get a hold of Justin?” she asked as the both of them started walking down the hall after the group.

“Yeah,” replied Jasper, “but it wasn’t easy.”

“What do you mean?”

“Well, you know. Him and Lucretia’ve only been married a month . . . .”

“Oh!” his mother giggled. “Yes, of course.”

“I’m surprised his farm hasn’t fallen apart,” he laughed.

“That’s how it was when your father and I-”

“Mom, please!” cringed Jasper.

“I was  _going_  to say when your father and I first got  _married_. What were  _you_  thinking?” said Bonnie as she looked up at her son expectantly.

He merely blushed and looked around at anything and everything before gathering his wits and charging ahead with his original thoughts.

“So anyway, I was able to get a hold of him, and once I give him the rundown of the whole situation, he told me it was fine. He’s gonna let the preds stay with him, too. Said he’s gonna take it up with the city council. Also told him we needed to keep sis’ being here a secret.”

He stopped walking down the hall, and they both stood at the mouth of living-room as some preds shuffled in behind them.

He turned to his mother as she spoke. “Is he talking to Lucretia’s father?”

Jasper nodded. “That’s what I’m thinking would be the first thing to do since he’s on the board  _and_  on the parish council.”

“Alright, I’ll be sure to let that badger know,” said Bonnie as she turned to leave.

Jasper looked down in thought for a moment before looking up. “Honey, Mom,” he called.

She had already made it across the living room and turned back to look at him as he moved to the side of the hall in order to let more preds pass by him and into the house.

“What was that?” she asked as she looked at him.

“I just meant that her name’s Honey.”

She gave him a curious smile before turning to the preds in the living room. Several more of Jasper’s siblings joined her, many of them wearing dark and suspicious looks as they met the predators, and helped their mother lead them downstairs as she gave them a basic tour of the house.

Jasper walked back into the hall and into the kitchen. He saw “Carrots” who was hiding in a corner, feigning fear as she hid her face while holding Fay. She had wisely chosen to do so to avoid frightening the preds who were undoubtedly on the lookout for any sign of Judy Hopps, their tormentor. All bunnies might look alike to outsiders, and in hiding her face, she had avoided detection.

Not that he really foresaw any preds poking their heads around in the kitchen. But still, just a glance inside might have tipped someone off.

He had knocked off work  _way_  earlier than he normally would have and let the farm hands take care of the rest. Normally he wouldn’t’ve quit for anything, but these were special circumstances, now.

Not too much earlier, he had gone to a small kiosk in the town centre and bought a small phone on the cheapest month-to-month plan he could. He’d had to go back when Honey told him that the only phone that would work with the encryption app they were using was one that supported apps in the first place—not the Jitterbug he’d purchased. It was halfway into her explanation of what software his phone would need that he realised he understood nothing. It was all Greek to him, and he needed a translator. They drove in what to Honey felt like an awkward silence, but Jasper enjoyed the comfortable silences; and seeing him so at ease put her at ease, too.

He’d gone back to the shop and purchased the cheapest thing he could with no plan. Honey had told him, thankfully, that plans weren’t needed—the messaging services would suffice and that beyond that, there was no need to worry as long as he could connect through a local hotspot.

More gobbledygook as far as he was concerned. He handed her the phone and said, “You do it,” when it came to downloading everything.

He had managed to contact all of his siblings with the details of Judy’s situation as well as the current plans for getting back into the city. After several texts wherein he battled mostly his brothers—both their disbelief and out-and-out hostility—he managed to persuade a large number of them to open up their houses while many others agreed only provisionally until they spoke to Judy themselves. He conveyed this to Honey the instant he found out which ones were definitely opening their houses and gave her the addresses of those who were onboard with the basics of the situation.

The destruction of Happy Town had been on the morning news. The tragedy wasn’t reported, however, without the telltale spin characteristic of any group with a vested interest in hiding the truth. The media seemed to be suggesting that an armed invasion planned by predators had been on the verge of taking place when the city hall decided to mount a pre-emptive strike.

The news had come as a shock to everyone. Especially the Happy Towners earlier in the morning. While Nick and Judy had been sleeping, the word had been spread throughout social media, and they had been able to read it.

Nick and Judy, along with the others in the group, were stunned to find out that after what had probably amounted to a large clearing out of the city, much of it had been levelled. However, even with all the devastation in the photographs and images, the narrative continued to focus on the cruelty of the predators and how they had apparently been planning to destroy the prey supremacy in the city.

That was another lie that Jasper had had to fight through when talking with his siblings. They insisted they wouldn’t believe a word he spoke unless they heard it straight from Judy, who, they were glad to hear, was actually alive. The assassination attempt yesterday was just one of many things Jasper told them which got them to listen: He learned after the first three or four conversations that opening with a text reading, “Judy’s alive. She survived an assassination attempt,” caught their eyes mighty quick.

He had managed to do all of this with the help of his other siblings—there was no way he’d’ve been able to do it all by himself and he was grateful to be finally taking a break from it.

After all of his negotiating, and setting up with Honey which houses were safe and which ones hadn’t yet given their permission, there was one thing that had been left burning in his mind, and that was how the hell his sister had managed to clone herself—which was the only conclusion he could come to. He felt as though he had stepped into an episode of the fucking  _Twilight Zone_.

So Jasper stood in the entryway and stared at Judy as she looked over at him. Nick was seated at the table and eyed him wearily. The rabbit was about to speak when his thought was interrupted by one of his siblings.

“Hey, is everything alright in here? Why aren’t you out there helping with the preds?” said a youngish-looking grey rabbit as he came up behind him in the doorway.

Jasper started in surprise at his brother’s sudden appearance. “Jesus, Brendon, you mind not sneakin’ up like that? I just gotta talk to Jude is all.’

Brendon looked at Fay and Judy huddled at the table and noticed Judy’s police uniform. “I thought they said her name was Carrots?”

“Yeah, Carrots, I mean,” said Jasper absently. He had no idea how the hell he and his family were expected to believe that this bunny was merely a body double for Hopps. She was a dead fucking ringer, down to the patterns of fur on her ears and face. Tiny little things that normally wouldn’t stand out at a casual glance  _would_  stand out upon close inspection. Not a  _hair_  was out of place.

He told his brother to go out back to the loading dock and take the taller preds in through there and into the storage chamber. He also told him to tell Honey where those preds’d be waiting.

The lad was gone a moment later, and then it was just “Carrots,” “Red,” and Fay in the kitchenette with him, and he wasted little time sending Fay out after her brother to lend him a hand, assuring her that she would be fine in the presence of their larger guests downstairs.

When it was just the three of them alone, he slid the kitchen door closed and locked it before he turned to the couple and let out a sigh. And for the second time that day, Jasper sat down at the table and motioned for Carrots to sit.

“Who are you really?” he asked when she looked at him.

Neither Nick nor Judy had spoken a word as he’d shut the door and sent the others away—his behaviour was perplexing, and he had a serious air about him that carried with it a sense of supreme gravity and neither of them had had any idea what it was but had simply thought it best to mutely humour him.

Judy looked stunned in the wake of Jasper’s question, and she and Nick gave each other a nervous look as they wondered what they should say. The obvious play was to deny that they were anybody save whom they said they were. But since Judy couldn’t lie worth a damn, the task fell quickly to Nick, and he instinctively heard her question.

“You knew we were lying?!” asked Judy.

“Of  _course_  I knew you were lying! What, do you think I’m stupid?”

Nick raised his eyebrows. “You want me to answer that? ‘Cause if you’re gonna leave that door op-”

“Jesus  _fucking_  Christ, would you shut the fuck up?!” said Jasper as he put his head in his paws as exasperation sucked the wind out of him.

The bunny paused and took a deep breath before gathering his wits and continuing as he looked at Judy. “I had to talk to Mom about it because something didn’t seem right. Now, that young bunny I saw downstairs tellin’ her story was my sister, but I also know what I see when I look at you. You act exactly like her.

“I talked to Daisy and to Mom about what happened when you came home last night. Mom told me that you told her about what happened with Uncle Terry and the time  _he_  et a night howler. The thing about that is, when she mentioned it, even  _I_  had to ask her about that story because she didn’t tell  _any_  of us about it. Dad knew, but that’s just because Mom and Dad grew up together. That’s what clinched it for me—you  _have_  to be Judy, somehow. Or someone  _really_  close to Mom. And Mom knows it, too. She realised it when I brought it up to her. You gave yourself away when you came up with the story that you were just Judy’s body double because there’s no way you could know family stories like that if you weren’t a part of our family. So now, the question is why are you lying and what’re you covering up?”

There was a lengthy pause where Nick and Judy only stared at the buck as they racked their brains.

“Well, obviously,” said Nick after he and Judy darted a quick look at each other, “we’re copies of your sister and Nick Wilde in there who came here from a parallel universe!” He laughed out loud. It quickly died, however, when he saw the buck’s eyebrows lift up.

Judy nudged him and Nick closed his mouth, swallowing thickly as he tried to look innocent.

Judy giggled nervously and leant forward on the table and stretched her paws toward her brother.

“Please!” she said animatedly, speaking quickly to cover her nervousness. “That, Nick! What a kidder! No, we’re not from another universe, we’re from this universe. Stop talking crazy!” She trailed off in a series of giggles as her brother eyed her suspiciously.

“I thought his name was Red,” said Jasper as he nodded toward the fox. His impatience was growing. If there was one thing he couldn’t stand was people outright lying to him.

“Oh, his name  _is_  Red. It’s just-”

“And you expect me to believe that your name is actually Carrots? And that you’re a  _totally different_  bunny from my sister even though you look exactly like Judy and know all the family stories?”

“To be a convincing body double, you have to-”

“Oh, just  _stop_  it!” shouted Jasper as he pounded the table. “Do I look like I have the word ‘dumbass’ written on my forehead? There’s no way you’re body doubles!”

“Then how would you explain us looking exactly like Nick and Judy?” said Nick as he sat forward.

“Ah, and there it is,” said Jasper slowly as he leant over the table toward the fox. The confidence in the bunny’s eyes was disarming. He had one more trump card in this game of cat and mouse. “That’s the nail in the coffin for both of you,” said Jasper as a smile quirked the corner of his mouth. “See, the fact of the matter is, Fox, you  _don’t_  look exactly like Nick. He has scars crossing down the front of his face and you  _don’t_. Now, you want me to believe that they got a bunny who looks and acts  _exactly_  like my sister but they didn’t bother with even a cosmetic touch up for you? Now, I’ve seen some pretty mean scars in my life, and I can tell that Nick down there’s had his for a  _while_. So no, there’s no way you would’ve been hired on as a body double and  _not_  been given his scars somehow.”

The two merely looked at him as they sat at a total loss as to what to respond.

“Someone once said that if you tell the truth, you don’t have to have a good memory,” said Jasper, “and if you’d remembered what you told Mom last night, you wouldn’t’ve screwed up on this one. Mom’s figured it out,” he said as he looked back to Judy. “She’d never forget her own kit. And if you really wanna put this to the test, I’m sure we could do a DNA you cops’re so fond of and see what’s what if you really wanna insist on the charade.”

He sat back and regarded the two with an easy manner.

Before either of them could answer, Brandon came rushing back into the kitchen, huffing and out of breath as he spoke.

“Dad told me to come get you,” he said slowly. “There’s an emergency council meeting’s been scheduled for right now.”

“Shit, and I just got back to town,” said Jasper as he stood up. “Had to make two trips to get that phone . . .”

“Look, just buck up and do it,” said the younger male tiredly. “I’m just telling you what Dad said. Justin’s coming, too.”

Jasper lifted his eyebrows and turned back to Nick and Judy.

“Well, I guess y’all get a pass this time. Our conversation’s gonna have t’ wait.”

-.-.-.-

Honey sat in one of the lesser common rooms. It was sparsely populated with preds as members of the Hopps family showed them to their rooms.

She was at a table reading over some papers that had been given to her by members of COR who had managed to find their way here. A lot of it was correspondence she would normally have taken the time to answer. Circumstances being what they were, however, it seemed quite impossible.

She sighed and put the papers down as a slight headache began to throb along the right side of her brain. She took several deep breaths to calm herself and felt her headache disappearing.

“Honey?” came a voice startling the badger.

She turned quickly to see Judy looking at her. Her blue paisley shirt hung loosely around her.

“No floral pattern?” asked Honey as she noted the bunny’s attire.

Judy smirked and sat down on the table. “Not now. I felt like something else.” She smiled as she looked down at Honey’s papers which the badger quickly overturned.

The bunny quirked an eyebrow at the badger, and she merely smiled in return.

“COR still has its secrets,” she said to the bunny. “We’ve come so far taking all of these precautions, we can’t let up, now.”

Judy nodded in understanding. “So, Mom told me that they’ve called a council meeting.”

Honey’s eyebrows lifted and her face seemed to brighten. “Oh, really? Well, that’s some good news.”

“Maybe not. They may tell the preds who’re coming here to pack up and go,” she replied with a worried look.

“Well,” said Honey as she shrugged, “we needed to ask them, anyway. I say, rip if off like a band-aid and get it over with. Invite some preds along to share their own stories. We just have to-” she heard a ding from her Ibex-Pad and she looked down to see what it was, “-excuse me for just one second,” she finished quickly.

Hopps watched as her friend picked up the pad and started reading through the message. A moment later, the badger looked up at her. “Is there a private room somewhere? There’s something that I need to see.”

Judy nodded slowly and hopped off the desk as she led the badger to one of the unoccupied rooms.

Checking to make sure it was empty, Hopps ushered her inside before closing the door. Judy heard the lock click and knocked gently. “Just please hurry. Mom told me we’re all going to the meeting now.”

“Sure thing. Tell everyone that I’ll be up in just a minute,” came Honey’s muffled voice through the door. Judy hurried and dashed back to the commons.

-.-.-.-

In the small room, Honey looked down at her a message on her pad that read, “FOR YOUR EYES ONLY.” It was from Jack Savage and contained a video file which, she noted, was relatively short.

There was a short note that came from it from Jack.

_Honey, you need to see this. Not sure, but I think we have another player in town._

_Ask the other Nick and Judy about him._

Honey read the message over with a puzzled expression. She tapped the file with her finger and waited for it to download before it automatically began playing.

It was grainy, out-of-focus footage of a police officer detaining what she assumed was a predator walking down the side walk. The creature turned to the officer and spoke in a voice that faded in and out of hearing, but she was just able to make out what he said.

“I’m looking for a fox and a bunny: Nick Wilde and Judy Hopps. That’s all I need to know,” came the animals voice.

She watched as the officer strutted forward.

“You’re under arrest, savage!”

“Tell me where they are!” shouted the creature so loudly the officer took a step back and fell off the curb. She heard some heavy breathing and watched as the officer slowly reached for his gun.

In the space of an instant, the creature was upon him. There were sounds of a rough scuffle and she heard the officer gagging.

Her eyes widened as she watched the animal lift the officer into the air by his throat. He aimed his gun at the attacker when the creature snatched the officer’s paw. She winced as the pig squealed, letting out a shout as she heard the bones in its paw crunch all at once.

“Fucking feral! Yre goghna die!” he shouted as he gurgled in his throat. “Gonna fucking de fang y-” he was cut off again but managed to grasp his intercom. “Officer down! Officer down! Collarless fer-” The officer stopped speaking and began spluttering as the creature choked the life from him.

Honey felt her heart race, her breathing coming in more sharply, as she heard the policeman struggling before letting out a chilling rattle as he dangled in the air from the creature’s paw, shuddering before going limp.

He let go, and she saw the officer fall with a thud.

The animal stood, panting for a moment. And though she tried her best, Honey for the life of her couldn’t figure out what the hell she was looking at. Could be a small wolf or a fox. Maybe even a hyena. Whatever it was, she couldn’t quite tell through the dark footage.

All of a sudden, as the creature stood there panting, he stopped and became silent as he slowly turned toward the camera. The infrared light made the creature’s eyes gleam as they stared out at her. In an instant, it disappeared into thin air.

Honey stood there, bemused and frightened. She turned the footage back several times, thinking that there must have been some glitch, but the time stamp in the corner of the screen told her that what she was seeing had been unedited.

She paused the footage for the fifth time and looked at a frame of the creature stare out at her with shimmering eyes. Honey took a deep breath and watched again as he simply vanished. A shudder ran up her spine as she tried to rid herself of the fear she was feeling, the prickling sensation tickling the back of her neck as her hackles rose.

She closed the video player and exited all of her programs before putting her pad into sleep mode. It hung in her paw at her side and stood there motionless. That the creature seemed to be searching for Nick and Judy was a terrifying thought as well; and as much as she hated to admit it, she was now thinking she owed Red and apology for her skepticism. How the hell could she explain what she saw? Then again, she realised, perhaps the shadowy figure was somehow in league with Nick and Judy. Sure, the couple seemed nice enough, but now this? And, they had pointedly ignored the large gatherings downstairs, preferring the privacy of the kitchen. Just what had they been discussing?

She could feel her headache returning and she put a paw to her head to massage her temples before letting it drop.

She stood up straight and let her numb mind try to process what she had seen, the flash of that terrifying visage looking out at her struck terror into her heart once again, her rational mind having left her.

After a moment, she let out a sigh and muttered, “Well . . .  _that’s_  not gonna haunt me for the rest of the day . . . .”


	12. The Best Laid Plans . . .

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> A rowdy town hall meeting stresses our heroes as they struggle with how to move forward with plans to regroup. Nick and Judy take time for a romantic interlude while trust—or the lack of it—is quickly becoming the name of the game.
> 
> A battle of wits and attempts to out manoeuvre are taking place on both sides

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Once again, I would like to thank all my reviewers and all those who've supported me through my writing. I would once again like to thank my editor Soildier for his help in preparing this chapter. His help has been invaluable to me.
> 
> This chapter comes a little later than I would prefer, but that was due to the nonsense of papers and other things which came due at the end of term. Fortunately, for all those of you who might have a slight interest in my life, I passed with all As. I graduated on Monday and Tuesday of this week in two ceremonies. I've also had to fill out applications for grad school which, with any luck, I will be starting next Fall. 
> 
> Once again, I would like to thank you all for your support. I hope you all continue to enjoy my little hobby as much as I do.
> 
> And now, without further ado, please enjoy the chapter which DOES contain a lemon.

* * *

 

_2:17 PM_

Honey put her head in her paws as she listened to the rumble all about her. Hopps had just finished telling her story for the third time that day and had gone into more detail about the day of the cull. She could see that the bunny was worn. The sorrow and emotional exhaustion were clear in the creature’s face, and Honey wondered how much more of this the bunny could take.

Among other things that required immediate addressing were the lies that had been spread about Nick Wilde. Hopps herself had done the explaining so as to not totally shock the audience when he came out from behind a curtain and took a seat at the council table.

While the Hoppses had done an excellent job emphasising the need for secrecy amongst each other and others in the community, she was getting the sinking feeling that there was no way to keep this wholly under wraps. That feeling would have to bide until she could do something about it.

The council meeting had started at one thirty in the afternoon with enough time and early enough in the day that citizens of the Burrow would be able to make it before heading back to work. The room was positively packed such that at the back of the hall it was standing room only, and that included onlookers in the balcony.

There were so many up there that Honey had briefly wondered whether it might crack under the weight.

The reason for the large turnout was certainly due to the fact that word had gone out that the dwellers of the recently-levelled Happy Town were seeking refuge with them. And of course, that the famous and recently deceased Judy Hopps was going to be there.

She and Hopps along with other members of the city council were sitting at a long table set upon a dais, along with some of the Happy Towners. Judy and Fangmeyer were seated at opposite ends of the table; Wilde was seated just to her left.

Eventually, the clamour died down.

“The floor will now open up for questions from the assembly,” cried the chair of the meeting, an elderly bunny whose primed look gave her an air of authority.

Several members stood in place and raised their paws.

“Okay, you first!” cried the bunny as she pointed out a black rabbit who stood near the front.

“Yeah,” he started in a country drawl, “I just wanted to say that I always knew the city was weird and that things weren’t right there, but I don’t know if I can believe all of what you’re sayin’.”

Honey and Hopps looked at each other and shrugged.

“Um . . .” began Hopps, “I don’t know what you want me to say. It happened. I saw it with my own eyes,” she said matter-of-factly.

“How do we know what you’re saying’s true, though, is my question,” replied the bunny.

“Well,” started Hopps slowly, “There’s Fangmeyer here who was declawed. He’s proof of some kind of torture.”

“But declawing isn’t torture,” said the bunny.

“How is it not torture?”

“It just isn’t.”

“Would you want someone to tie you down and remove your claws?” asked Hopps.

“No, but I also wouldn’t want to go to jail but I still have to. Is jail torture because I don’t like it.”

Honey muted her microphone and turned to Hopps.

“Are these animals fucking serious?!” she asked in a hushed whispered. Hopps gave her an apologetic look and turned back to the rabbit.

“So, if your wife or daughter were declawed, you’d be okay with it because it isn’t torture?”

He shut up instantly, much to Hopps’ relief, so she pressed her advantage.

“If you heard your wife screaming and begging you to help her, your daughter too—or maybe your son—do you think you’d be able to bear it and  _not_  think it’s torture?”

The buck paused for a moment at Judy’s words before continuing. “Well, they don’t do it to kids, though!” he exclaimed.

Judy huffed. “Yes, they do.”

“Wha-! They do? No, they don’t!” said the buck as he went from shocked to curious to incredulous in the space of a second

Hopps nodded uncomfortably. “Yes, they do. I’ve seen them do it. I had to be present on several occasions when delinquent minors were declawed and sometimes even killed without anaesthesia. You will  _never_  hear about any of it unless you’re part of the inner circle.”

 _That_  certainly seemed to put things in a different light, though several of the assembled were shaking their heads doubtfully.

Honey looked down the row of animals and saw Fangmeyer sitting on the very end, looking quite uncomfortable.

“Fangmeyer,” said Honey, “you wanna set the record straight?”

The white wolf looked surprised and looked back down the row.

“Uh . . .” started the wolf uncertainly, “what should I say?”

“Just tell the truth,” said Honey. She nodded at him encouragingly.

Feeling impelled to do so, he stood shakily and cleared his throat.

“Uh . . .” he looked back down the row of animals and regarded Honey wearily; “so, what were we talking about?”

A murmur of laughter softly made its way through the crowd.

Fangmeyer’s ears tinted pink from embarrassment. He almost had a feeling to sit down and made to do so when Honey’s voice cut through the crowd.

“The rabbit in the crowd just said that there’s no way that Zootopia, or City Hall, would be killing and declawing children.”

Fangmeyer nodded back, thankfully. “Uh, yeah, right. Uh . . .” he trailed off as he looked over the crowd before casting his eyes upward to regard those in the gallery. “Uh . . .” he trailed again, feeling apprehensive and full of doubt as the crowd quieted, waiting to hear what he had to say.

“Yes, they would,” was all he said. He bent his ears back as another murmur of laughter went through the crowd, and he hated the way he was reaching maximum levels of self-consciousness.

“What I mean is,” he tried again as he looked back down the row spying Hopps who was looking at him encouragingly, “they did that to me, too. I . . . I mean, Judy here,” he said as he gestured to Hopps, “had my cub killed-”

Before he could utter another word several members of the crowd jumped up and shouts of protest as they cut him off midsentence. The anger in their voices grew, their words indiscernible as they gestured at the wolf accusingly, their faces a mask of fury.

Hopps realised that she’d made a mistake in not telling her family to prepare to hear some rather awful stories about her. She hadn’t thought to: everything had just moved too quickly, her focus elsewhere.

She heard chants from various parts of the hall shouting “Throw him out!”

Several others chanting that he was a liar.

Hopps jumped up on top of her place in the council table as the council chair banged her gavel to calm the crowd.

“Listen a minute!” cried Hopps over the manifold voices. “Will you listen just a minute!” she shouted more insistently.

She ran down to the councilwoman’s place in the midst of the table and grabbed her microphone—the only one available—held it up to her face and belted out a long, drawn-out whistled that had the crowd shouting in pain, and she didn’t let up until it was totally silent, not a voice crying out.

The silence was deafening—as was the whistle—and in that lull, she spoke insistently.

“What Fangmeyer’s saying is true! He was led to believe that his cub had been killed by me.”

A tentative hush of disbelieving voices swept over the room.

“If I hadn’t been there,” continued Hopps, “his cub would have died.” She looked over to Fangmeyer now. “And if you’ll give this wolf a moment to tell his story, I’m  _sure_  everything will be clarified.”

The bunny, still on the table, walked across to his end and handed the wolf the microphone before dashing across the tabletops to her end.

“So . . .” started Fangmeyer, more uncomfortable than ever as he viewed the crowd, “what happen was my collar was malfunctioning, and I got into an argument with a police officer. The officer had never seen an angry wolf before—I guess—and assumed that I was going to kill him. Because to him, all preds without collars wanna kill or something. Anyway, he called it in and I got arrested because he said that I assaulted him. I was with my cub at the time, and they took me in. They took my cub, too.” Here he let out a sigh as the painful memories washed over him. “They declawed me without anaesthesia, nearly shaving off the tips of my fingers. They used a scalpel to dig between the claw and my skin. Every time I passed out, they would wait for me to regain consciousness to continue.”

He stood there speechless for a moment as the absolute trauma of the experienced froze his brain, and he stood there for several moments reliving the experience again and again. He instinctively clenched his paws and gripped the microphone tightly as his breathing came in heavier, his heart beginning to race. He clenched his jaw shut as the torture from that day seemed to be reaching from the past to hold his mind in its sway, seemingly paralysing him.

He managed to shake himself out of his reverie abruptly.

“When they were through,” he spoke breathily, as though he’d just been running, “they let me go. I was through crying. I’d used up all my tears. They put me in a van—a police van—and drove me back to my apartment. They opened up the side and let me out. They didn’t bandage me or anything. My paws looked like they’d been shredded. I was numb the whole way, just trying to not let myself feel. And then . . . yeah . . . so then, when I got there, they let me out and, um . . . .” Fangmeyer seemed to be gritting his teeth. He was looking down at the ground, trying to gather himself before continuing. “So when they. . . when they let me out, that’s when I noticed that my cub wasn’t with me. And I asked’em where my cub was. And he just said—the driver—he said, ‘Forget your cub; he’s dead.’ And he just drove off and left me there on the sidewalk.”

After a moment of silence, Honey spoke softly.

“And what did you do?”

“After that?” asked Fangmeyer, turning to Honey, at which she nodded.

“Nothing. There was nothing I  _could_  do,” he continued as he looked back at the crowd, speaking in a low voice. “I just went into my apartment and watched some TV.”

Judy, unable to bear it any longer, suddenly tore her eyes from the council table and turned into Nick and broke down, letting loose a flood of tears as the hopelessness of Fangmeyer’s story swept through her. They’d been standing off to the side of the dais and were hidden from the audience by a curtain.

Nick held her tightly to himself, his own ears drawn back with emotion, as he nuzzled into her as she sobbed. Everything was just so dark!

Back on the dais, Fangmeyer continued.

“I wasn’t really alive for the next few months. It seemed like everyone wanted to know what happened, and I just couldn’t talk about it. I would just say, ‘He’s dead,’ to anyone who asked, again and again. It was all I could say. And I just wasn’t feeling anything for a while. It didn’t really hit me that he . . . that he . . . .” Fangmeyer seemed to be choking back sobs. Refusing to let his tears fall, he grit his teeth and waited till he was able to speak without emotion hitching his voice.

“So, it really didn’t hit me that he was dead,” he said in a rush, “until about four months later. There was a funeral for him and everything. And . . . uh . . . well, I got home from work one day and . . . and I tripped over one of his toys. And I cursed and picked it up and went to go put it in his room. And it was the first time that I’d been in his room since, and I saw how everything was just the way he’d left it on the day he died and I just-!”

He cut himself off as emotion overwhelmed

Hopps walked across the table to Fangmeyer and took the microphone from him as she stood on his far side.

“It wasn’t until today,” said Hopps, “that he learned that his cub was alive. I got his son out of Zootopia and to a safe house. But there isn’t always a happy ending. The fact of the matter is that in my off-duty hours, children have been put to death. Often in the name of taming the predator population naturally. They kill the children of parents who have undesirable traits. Declawing has happened on my watch. I usually have to write a report on it.”

She looked at Fangmeyer as he looked over at her with tears in his eyes. He sat down slowly, and Hopps went back to her place, handing the microphone back to the chairpanther as she did so.

The assembly members looked stunned, clearly moved by the power of the wolf’s testimony. Unfortunately, their emotional responses were overwhelmed by their negative feelings toward preds, and it trumped their natural inclination to believe what the wolf was saying.

Hopps herself was facing a particularly harsh scrutiny in their minds of many. How many times had they seen  _her_  on television saying the exact opposite?! How often had they seen  _her_  and stories about her on the evening news and felt that what was going on in her life were vicariously happening to them?! For ages, it seemed they’d seen her on the side of the police and, seeing themselves in her, imagined themselves siding with the police against the preds in a city whose poverty and crime rates were up in recent statistical analyses,  _proving_  that chompers as a group were more prone to immoral and illegal behaviour.

Now, all of a sudden it seemed they were being asked to flip a switch and trust the chompers of Happy Town when they felt they had absolutely no reason to do so. Many prey animals looked around nervously at their fellow predators who seemed much more ready to accept the situation than they were. The division felt stark, and it seemed to highlight a barrier between the two kinds that many pred nor prey animals had even realised was there.

The chairpanther opened up the meeting to comments, and this time, it seemed, the more hostile and stringent opponents seemed to rise up as one by one they launched into long diatribes against the move to give the displaced any aid whatsoever!

“I’m not sure we should be allowing these degenerates into our city!” cried a black rabbit, quite out of turn.

“We aren’t degenerates!” shouted a panther in response

“We can’t trust’em! The news said-!”

“The news lied! Judy’s here, isn’t she?!”

“I don’t know  _who_  to trust anymore, Bobby! Not even you. You’re one of  _them,_  so of course you’re gonna side with’em against  _us_! For all I know, she’s trying to destroy our way of life! She’s just said that she was a spy, why the hell should anyone believe anything she has to say,  _now_?!”

“These animals need our help!” cried a young sheep. “The news  _also_  said that Happy Town was  _gone_! Where are they supposed to go if they don’t have homes?”

“Happy Town was done away with because they were all in on some seditionist behaviour!” returned the buck.

“We’re not a real part of Zootopia, so what does it matter to us? What if Zootopia tried doing the same thing to  _us_?!” she shouted.

The meeting was erupting into chaos with loud murmurs and cries of anger flying back and forth. The chairpanther tried again and again to regain order, but the arguments were spinning out of control.

“That won’t happen to us!” returned the buck.

The sheep eyed him, mystified as to what he was saying. “How can you know that?!” she replied.

“Because we’re not-”

“Not  _what_?” shouted Gideon Grey, standing up to confront the rabbit; “Preds?!”

The rabbit closed his mouth when he caught sight of the fox. It was all laid bare there on the floor of the hall.

At this point, Jaguar stood up and looked around at the other preds in the room. His stare was hard, but when he spoke, his voice was even-tempered.

“Is that what you all really think of us?” His tenor held a defiance that dared anyone to challenge him.

Trevor stood up next to his friend and rejoined with his own statement. “We’ve been here for as long as most of  _you’ve_  been,” said the weasel. “We’ve grown up alongside  _all_  of you!”

Garreth, another sheep, stood up. “I’m with Trevor and Bobby and the rest of’em! If these preds were any one of  _them_ ,” he said as he gestured to the animals behind him, “are we really saying we’d turn our backs?”

The ram looked around at the crowd and even up to those in the gallery to gauge them. All of them seemed to be murmuring somewhat approvingly.

“And for the record,” said Honey over the dull rumble of voices, “officials in your legislature may not have told you this, but there is currently a law making its way through the system that would amalgamate Zootopia and Bunnyburrow.”

Her statement had the desired effect immediately—

 _Instantly_  the room erupted in a frenzy of voices.

The panther at the head of the meeting banged her gavel as several predators arose in place and shouted. Several other prey animals stood and shouted along with them.

Angry voices rose and echoed throughout the building, ricocheting off the walls from both the ground and upper gallery.

As Hopps sat back and regarded the chaos, she felt particularly satisfied. She knew that Bunnyburrow wanted to keep its autonomy more than anything, and the surest way to  _possibly_  getting what they wanted—which was a kind of safe haven for preds—was to ally them as a whole against a common enemy.

Derek Jacobson’s irate comment—that what had happened to Happy Town could  _never_  happen to them—seemed in more doubt than it had been moments before. And Hopps was pleased when her old school friend Sharla stood and recognised a similar sentiment in the midst of the din.

“Can you all honestly—thank you!” she said, interrupting her thought as things quieted down around her. “Please!” she said again, more loudly to get everyone’s attention before continuing on in spite of some popcorn conversations here and there; “I just needed to say that we all need to look at the preds around us and  _think_  for a moment. I mean  _really_  think! Now, I dunno about y’all, but they’re my friends. We all grew up together. We all of us young’uns’ve known each other since we were kittens or kits or lambs or what _ever_.

“Now, that badger sittin’ way up in that chair up there just said that this city is planning on amalgamatin’ with Zootopia, and I have an uncle that told me that that’s true! Now, I for one don’t wanna join them if even the minor stuff that Judy’s talkin’ about was true! I’ve been to Zootopia on business, and let me tell you all, she is right about at least  _one_  thing—the city is downright  _weird_. Now, I don’t know all what’s hanging over that city, but it is something dark. That city to look at it might make you think that it has all the money in the world, and that might be true, but I got a feelin’ that it’s got the meanness, too!

“Preds really  _do_  have to wear collars all th’ time there! And I saw signs callin’em chompers and saying they couldn’t be in groups and they couldn’t to this or that. Now, I want each an’ every one o’ you t’ look around at our friends who are preds. Look at Gideon! Look at Catmull! Can you  _see_  them having to wear collars? Can you  _see_  them getting shocked every time they got angry? It don’ feel right to have some _body_  up in the government tracking you all o’the time to make sure that ye’re doin’ right! Like they think preds’re gonna eat us? Take a look at Gideon! You all know that he gets fatter on blueberry pie than on anything else! No offence Gideon. You know we  _all_  love your pie. I’ve packed on quite a few myself,” she hastily added as she looked back at Gideon.

“The point is,” she continued, “these animals are our friends. And now what? Just because Zootopia said that preds can’t be trusted we’re not gonna trust’em? I trust Jaguar to run my finances and do my taxes! Hell, he’s the only actuary in town worth a damn, and there isn’t anybody in this building who doesn’t know it!”

“Maybe you wouldn’t be sayin’ that if you weren’t a predfucker, too!” shouted Derek.

Several shouts of outrage came from all corners of the room as Sharla stalked toward him.

“You know, you really are nuts, you know it?” she said with a fierceness of anger in her voice. “Did you forget where you are and where we’re from? Because I know that if your mamma heard you talkin’ like that, her only regret would be that she was too old to give you the beatin’ you deserve! Maybe the collar situation isn’t such a bad idea; maybe  _you_  should be collared. Huh? Maybe you’d like it if they put  _you_  in prison for losing your temper, but not  _me_! And not any other sane animal here!”

She looked around the room, making eye contact with several members. “We all remember the ancient prayer: ‘Great Spirit, help me never to judge another until I’ve walked in his moccasins.’ Are we willing to turn our back on animals who’ve been run out of their homes and dens, burrows and nests? Is this who we are?”

“Sit down, Sharla!” shouted a voice from across the room.

The ewe sucked in a deep breath and let it out slowly before returning to her seat. “Alright,” she said to the crowd, “but I just had to say what I had to say: because it seemed like no one else was gonna!”

She sat down only for Bobby Catmull to stand again. He was looking down at the ground, his eyebrows knit in deep thought.

He looked up at the council table on the dais, and around him at the nearly all-bunny turn out before speaking. “I guess the fundamental question is-”

“Could you speak up?!” interrupted a voice from the upper balcony.

“I said,” spoke Catmull, nearly shouting, “‘I guess the fundamental question is do you trust us?’“

Derek, the black bunny stood again, and several others around him groaned in protest.

“I’d trust a prey over a pred  _any_  day!” he shouted.

“Jesus, Derek, would you give it a rest!” shouted Sharla.

“Oh, come off it! I  _know_  you don’t trust preds! No decent prey can what with these chompers going savage all the time. You mark my words, they will  _all_  turn on us! I stand by what I said: No honest to goodness prey could  _ever_  trust a pred!”

“ _I_  do!” shouted Hopps from the dais. “Honey’s saved my life  _countless_  times!”

“Traitor!” shouted another rabbit, unable to contain himself any longer. He pointed at her accusingly. “You snake in the grass, you Judas! How many times did we see  _you_  in the news and on our TV screens talking about the problem of preds?! How many times did you tell us to beware the problem of chompers?!”

“I did what I had to do to survive and give predators caught by the system a chance to escape and survive, too! Innocent mammals would have been killed if I hadn’t been on guard! And if I hadn’t, I would’ve been killed  _myself_! I mean, they tried to do it,  _anyway_!”

“Goddamnit!” shouted Wilde who was sitting to her left. He pounded the table hard as he stood up. He spoke so loudly and so abruptly that it startled nearly everyone at the table. “I  _knew_  it!” he shouted as he looked at Judy furiously. “See?!  _This_  is  _exactly_  what I was talking about earlier!”

He turned out to the crowd and spoke loudly enough that the whole room could hear his voice.

“By a show of paws,” he started, “how many of you see preds as bad or delinquent members of society because of what you heard  _Judy Hopps_  say on TV or in the papers?”

Hopps felt a wave of dread wash over her and felt the pit in her stomach grow as she watched a rather sizable number of the attendees raise their paws.

Wilde was quiet as he took in the large number of raised arms.

He slowly turned to look at her, his expression grim and pregnant with a righteous fury boiling just beneath the surface.

“Now do you get it?” he asked her quietly.

Judy forced herself to meet his eyes as he continued. “Now do you get why I can’t forgive you? Like it or not, you spread a message of hate! So you can go back to your little fairy land and pretend like what you did was in the service of what  _you felt_  was a greater good!”

Hopps looked away from him and out into the sea of faces. A terrifying desperation settling into her chest as she began to feel herself crumble. Everything she had done up to that point was suddenly thrown into doubt! She had done  _everything_  that was asked of her, and now, because of her actions, she was facing a terrifying situation in which she might have destroyed any possible chance for the preds to be settled there because of a message of fear and mistrust in which her face and her likeness had been instrumental.

She stood up on the table and ignored Wilde’s accusing glare.

“Please!” she said loudly to the gathered, imploring them to see the sense of what she was saying; “The fact that I’m here  _proves_  that Zootopia has been lying to you! We  _have_  to take the preds in! They’re homeless and frightened! If the city lied about my death and had a hand in trying to kill me, what makes you think the city’s telling the truth about the preds?”

“Oh, just stop it!” shouted Wilde. “You don’t care about preds the way you said you did or you’d’ve done  _much_  more to try sparing us the injustice of living in a city that, I just found out, was actively executing  _my kind_  for no reason!”

Fury flashed in her eyes as she rounded on him.

“Goddamnit!” she shrieked, finally cracking under the weight of guilt and fear and abuse, “I could tear myself apart and you wouldn’t be happy! I’ve torn my heart out a  _thousand_  times in witnessing the brutalities of that fucking city! I had to let that city and everyone else around me shred me bit by bit and devour me piece by piece!”

“Well, don’t get mad at  _us_ _preds_  for spreading this level of intolerance! That’s on  _you_! The reason you’re so pissed off is because you  _know_  you’re wrong! You  _know_  you’ve fucked up and done something you can’t take back!”

“Well, what the hell would you have done in my place?!”

“Kill myself.”

He regretted the words before he’d even said them.

They were like a spell, and he watched as the anger suddenly bled from her face; he watched as instead of attacking him—which is what  _he_  might’ve done had anybody made such a personal attack on him—she was instead suddenly silenced, and it seemed to him in an instant that she withered, her spirit leaving her and floating away like bits of straw and chaff upon the wind.

When she spoke next, it was to Wilde; her words were dead and flat as she eyed him with a total lack of feeling or emotion.

“I already tried that.”

The terrifying definiteness struck fear in his heart as she saw with a horrifying clarity everything she’d been struggling with within herself. It hadn’t just been her witnessing the cull—that had been the hayloft that broke the camel’s back. She had been on edge for a  _long_  time before she finally attempted her own life.

He would’ve fared no better in her place. The internal war must’ve been a constant hell for her, and now she sat here: confronted by a Frankenstein’s monster of her own creation as members of the audience indicated that they had become as anti-pred as they were at that moment on account of things  _she’d_  said.

He caught Honey’s furious glare, and he sat down slowly before catching a glimpse of Judy’s siblings in the front row; every buck and doe among them looked like they wanted to rip him to shreds. He didn’t blame them.

He sank low in his seat as Judy let out a sigh and turned from him to look out at the mass of animals.

She could hear the murmurs and whispers out in the crowd, and she was thankful that not one of them seemed to have guessed why his comment had hit home.

She looked down the table at the actual council members and caught their eyes before walking over to the panther seated in the middle and taking the microphone with an approving smile from the feline. She turned to the crowd, hopping down in front of the table and stepping toward the edge of the dais, allowing those in the front row to see her more easily.

She sighed and gave her siblings a slight nod to indicate that she was alright, attempting to alleviate the concern she saw in their eyes.

Her voice was soft and serious; filled with a sadness and disappointment.

“As we can all see,” she started slowly, “this issue is incredibly charged. And there are no easy answers. Right and wrong are two lines that never cross, and sometimes we lose our way or we give up brave thoughts at the last second in order to survive or achieve what we—what  _I_ —feel we must in order to make the world a better place. The strain has been unbearable. What Honey and I are telling you when it comes to taking the preds in is very serious. If nothing else, consider this a change of my mind. I’ve been soaked and spattered with the blood of innocent preds. I’ve  _seen_  them die!

“I’ve seen them cry and beg for help when they’re declawed  _without_  anaesthesia! You tell me, Derek,” she said as she pointed out the bunny, “if that’s alright by you. Tell me it’s alright to murder frightened children while they’re screaming for their parents or for anyone else with a semblance of a soul to help them! Forget for just a second, any one of you who hates preds, that these refugees are chompers or savages or whatever else you call them: Is it okay to torture someone? Is it alright to punish children for something the parents  _supposedly_  did?”

There was a pause where several of the detractors looked around at each other before the bunny who’d called her a traitor stood up again, now looking quite embattled. He shook his head as he seemed to be trying to shake out his feelings and make sense of what she was saying.

“I just don’t like’em,” he said evenly. There was no anger, there was no malice nor any other discernable feeling. He stated what he said as though he were describing the colour of the sky or the grass or any other fact of life.

Hopps snorted. “Well, Jessop, I don’t particularly like you at this moment; does that make it alright for me to torture you?”

He hummed and looked down again, trying to piece things together while several other animals in the crowd were in the midst of the same struggle.

Nothing was said for several moments, and Judy slowly headed back to the table and gave the microphone back to the panther.

“Thank you,” said the councillor. “Are there any other comments?”

Hopps looked out at the crowd as she walked back to her seat, and she could see several animals struggling with voicing their misgivings because there was no way to voice them without simply saying it to say it. Struggle as they might with their distrust of these city-preds, the picture Hopps and Honey along with Fangmeyer and even  _Wilde_  had gone a long way to setting in stone a monolith of ethical questions whose right and wrong answers were clear. These preds had been made to suffer for the sole pleasure of seeing them suffer. Earlier in the presentation, before everyone had arrived, Honey had shown some photos and cell phone footage taken of such abusive practices.

As the purists among them might hate to admit it, they  _had_  to see what was happing in the city as an abomination; and the lives of the refugees were in their paws, now, and their deaths would be on them if they failed to act.

The panther nodded approvingly when no more objections were raised. Neither did the city councillors who’d had their say earlier in the meeting.

“Then it seems it’s time for a vote. Councillors,” she asked, “shall we do a quick yes-no vote?”

“I second the motion for a vote,” said a stag.

“Me too,” said a ewe.

“Very well,” said the panther, “all those in favour of granting asylum to the displaced predators from the levelled Happy Town, raise your paw.”

Hopps took a deep breath of anxiety before releasing in a sigh of relief; the fifteen member council voted in an eleven to four decision in favour of the motion.

Several shouts erupted from the gallery and the four who voted again the proposal stood up amid the din and outcry.

A younger-looking bunny took the lead as she addressed both the opposition on the council and the tumultuous crowd.

“Perhaps!” she said rather loudly, speaking above the crowd, “My colleagues on the council are mistaken! They don’t realise that this action will lead to war with Zootopia!”

“Zootopia declared war on you already when it decided to single out some members of this city over others!” said Honey, now speaking up to defend her proposal rather than sit back and letting Bunnyburrow’s residents duke it out as she had been.

“What do you mean?” asked the panther as the noise died down amid popcorn shouts calling for the resignation of the council members.

“I mean,” said the badger as she stood up on the table, “that this legislation,” she held up some papers in her right paw, “which I’ve been reading over the course of the meeting proposes to strip preds of their citizenship here and calls for them to be immediately turned over to Zootopia for tagging and processing.”

Honey looked over the council members and particularly gave the four no-votes a hard glare. “Is that what you meant by declaring war? Because it seems like Zootopia is already gunning for a war. It did the moment it started going after your citizens.”

“As you said,” started the bunny, “they won’t technically  _be_  citizens, so it’s not really a problem.”

“Are you  _fucking_  serious?!” shouted Honey, at last unable to control her temper. “What happened to that spirit of Bunnyburrow that was one-for-all? Where’s that neighbourliness that nearly everyone I’ve run into has been touting? A lot of your own citizens seem to think that it’s what makes you  _better_  than Zootopia!”

“Look,” said the bunny as she looked back out at the assembly who were becoming visibly uncomfortable with what they were hearing, “if we just give them what they want, they’ll leave us alone! It’s not that hard, and they’re not going to die! Nothing bad is going to happen to them, it’s just a routine collaring! And those that put up a fight will be incarcerated.”

“So what,” said Honey, “you’re going to offer up your friends and neighbours as a sacrifice?” Honey looked back out at the audience. “Is this what you all want? To offer up your friends and neighbours to this?”

“It’s  _us_  or  _them_!” shouted the bunny, looking out at the crowd. “If they were really our friends, they would be  _offering_  their lives to us instead of us having to take it from them!”

“I thought you said it was just a routine collaring,” said Honey as she cocked an eyebrow in the bunny’s direction.

The bunny looked caught out for a moment but recovered quickly. “It  _is_  just a routine collaring,” she said insistently thought with a hint of dark edge in her voice.

A sudden hint of suspicion pricked the back of Honey’s brain. “Councillor, when was the last time you’ve been to Zootopia?”

The bunny’s eyes widened slightly but managed to regard the badger evenly as she answered. “Last night.”

A murmur went through the crowd, but the bunny maintained her composure.

“Did you see what they did there?” asked Honey.

The bunny didn’t answer.

“Were you ever at Searton?” asked Honey.

After a long pause, the bunny answered. “I may have been there once or twice.”

A knowing look flashed in Honey’s face. “Did you witness a cull?” asked Honey, her voice dangerously quiet, but the was such stillness throughout the hall that everyone could hear her.

“Did you?” asked Honey again, more insistently though still keeping her voice low.

And suddenly it seemed to Honey that the bunny was tenser than she was before. It was subtle, and there were a few in the crowd who saw this and felt unnerved by it.

The bunny’s anxious silence told Honey everything she needed to know. Still, there was one thing she  _had_  to know . . .

“Did you see  _It_?” she asked.

The badger’s words went through the bunny’s soul.

Hopps had left out the subject of The Human when she’d explained the cull, and members of the audience looked at each other curiously at each other questioningly at the badger’s ominous sentence, but Honey saw in the bunny’s face a look that told her that councillor knew  _exactly_  what she was talking about.

To Honey, the council bunny’s acquaintance with The Human accounted for her insistence that they comply with Zootopia’s wishes: If she were there last night when City Hall had given the deplorable order and had seen what Zootopia had done to Happy Town and its residents before levelling it, and if she had witnessed a cull or two  _and_  met with or at least  _seen_  The Human, it made sense that she, as a council representative, would be concerned with putting forward the plan that would lead to the fewest amounts of deaths among the citizens she represented.

There was a long pause as the bunny and the badger stared at each other.

The council members looked around at each other in confusion, stunned; and they waited for someone to explain what the hell they were talking about.

Other members of the audience said nothing, not having quite heard what the badger had asked at the end while the Hoppses gave each other a knowing look as they surmised as well as Honey had  _why_  the councillor was unwilling to give in. They whispered quietly to each other, inquiring as to whether the reason why the others three apart from the bunny had voted no for the same reasons the bunny had.

The chairpanther looked back and forth between the two stalemated animals before breaking it up herself.

“Okay,” she said, drawing it out, “It’s clear that Hopps and her party have the moral authority here,” she turned to look at Honey, “and we’re all deeply moved by both you and your reports.”

The chairpanther specifically used the word “report” to give more weight to their presentation.

“I’m sure,” continued the panther, “that this will all make it into the tidings. I imagine most of this will be front-page news. Meeting adjourned!” she said loudly, and instantly there was a loud rumble of indistinguishable voices fafaing at a low volume throughout the hall.

But Honey visibly bristled at something the panther’d just said. “I don’t suppose there’s any way to keep this out of the papers?” she asked tentatively.

The council chair looked at her oddly. “You think there’s a way to keep this information out of the news?” the panther asked incredulously. “You’ve got to be joking. An interview with Judy is  _definitely_  coming up soon so she can describe, on the record, what it is that happened at Searton as well as the other details that happened during her tenure as a sergeant. Someone’s probably going to offer her a book deal.”

“That’s all long term stuff, though!” said Honey as she stepped in front of the panther. “Are you sure there’s no way to delay  _anything_?”

“Well . . .” trailed the panther, uncertain of Honey’s motives, “I mean, at the very least, the fact that Judy Hopps is  _alive_  is going to be on the evening broadcast.”

“Shit,” started Honey as she looked up and behind the panther to the blue curtained wall, as though searching the soft-looking folds for an answer to the problem that was looming before her, now. “Shit, shit,  _shit_!” she exclaimed at last.

In and instant, the badger found herself taken forcefully by the arm and dragged away from the long table and pulled her upstage toward the back wall.

“What has gotten  _into_  you? Do you realise you were shouting into the microphone?”

“I’m sorry,” replied Honey quickly, “it’s just that I still have operatives in the city that we need to get out. If they realise that Judy’s alive and that she’s  _here_ , City Hall is going to start asking itself some  _very_  serious questions. Like, ‘What is Hopps telling them?’ They’re going to get very antsy very quickly. And their hypervigilance is going to go through the roof.”

“I’m not connecting the dots. What does that have to do with your operatives? Can’t they just stay underground?”

“They can’t, that’s the thing!” replied Honey. “Because they’ve been the sources of our intelligence and the attack on Happy Town happened so quickly, we didn’t have a chance to gather our files and hard drives before we left!”

Understanding dawned in the panther’s eyes. “And you have to go back for the intelligence you’ve gathered if you want to have even the smallest chance of fighting a war against the city.”

Honey nodded fiercely. “I’m glad you understand: War is  _exactly_  what this is.”

“My fellow councilbunny might not have been hyperbolising in her concerns, then.”

“Not at all. War is coming, and that’s something all of you here have to prepare for,” said the badger.

The panther pursed her lips in thought. “So since you need to go back and get your files and you need to do it stealthily . . . .”

“And your papers and evening news are going to blow the lid on it . . .” said Honey, trying to lead the panther. She was hoping to get the council chair to see some sense! She  _had_  to gag the press!

“Then you’re going to have to launch your return to the city tonight,” said the panther instead.

The badger opened her mouth in shock as she looked at the cat. “You can’t be serious! You’re not willing to help me? Help  _us_?!”

“Shh! Keep your voice down!” the large female replied quickly, keeping her voice low amid the rumble of milling voices. “What I’m saying is that even if I gagged the press, the news of Judy Hopps being alive is too big to keep quiet! I’d be willing to bet a fortune on the fact that that shitty councilbunny is texting Mayor Pricilla and her cohort right now or will, soon! Don’t blind yourself to the obvious cracks and leaks that exist now. It’s something that you had to sacrifice if you wanted to make a place here for the preds coming out of the city; otherwise, there’s  _no way_  that anyone on the council would have approved this large influx of nonworking mammals into the city—even me—without hearing the other side of the story straight from Judy’s mouth.

Honey nodded in appreciation. She’d been hoping that certain things might have been kept quiet, but she saw now that it’d been a long show, anyhow. In her mind, she was already devising and organising what it was that needed to be done. As soon as the councillor was through with her, she was texting any and all contacts who were members of the guard to see whom she might be able to bring with her. She was going to need boats, she thought to herself. She was going to need a water landing. And she was going to have to contact her informants and any other agents and lay supporters and tell them to meet her at some location they could all agree on. She  _had_  to get them out tonight! No waiting. If her agents worked quickly, they could have all safe houses and dead drops scrubbed of information in an hour.

The council panther continued:

“Either way—whether I gag the press or not—you’re looking at tonight. Night falls at around five or five-thirty, now. My suggestion is you scramble and you scramble  _quick_! Hey, aren’t those Nick and Judy?!” she said as she saw the fox and bunny huddled in the corner.

Thinking quickly: “No! No. They’re . . . Ah! Their body doubles!”`

“Their body doubles?” replied the cat.

“Yeah, decoys. You know?”

“That doesn’t make any sense.”

“Look,” said Honey, “it’s really nothing for you to worry about. They’re look-alikes, sure, but they exist to keep Judy and Nick alive.”

The feline nodded vaguely, and gently sniffed the air. She gave the badger a knowing look.

“Say nothing to anyone,” said the badger now in a deadly serious voice. “ _Nobody_  can know.”

The cat nodded again, her face a mask of worry. “I . . . trust me, I have no desire to involve myself in your business.”

The badger’s fierce mien dropped, becoming again a façade of smiles.

“Same here. But I will offer one solid piece of advice,” said Honey.

“What’s that?”

“You tell that bunny, or _warn_ her, that leaking any of this to City Hall would most _certainly_ endanger the people she represents. You might remind her that what the city has been doing to preds, it can just as easily do to her and her constituents. And I’m fairly confident that she wouldn’t want to go down in history as a traitor to her ‘kind,’ would she?”

The chairpanther grinned. “You could be a politician.”

“God, no. But I urge you to speak to her quickly. _And_ you might suggest that she pass the same thing along to everyone who agrees with her. Everybody’s related to someone else, and this community is close-knit. I have strong doubts that enough animals would be willing to sacrifice their friends and neighbours, or even themselves.”

The panther nodded sagely. “I will do so with diligence,” she smirked.

Honey watched as the councillor turned from her and made for the councilbunny who seemed to be texting rather furiously on her phone.

“Not to mention what _we’ll_ do to you if we find out you betrayed us, _Councillor_ . . .” she muttered.

-.-.-.-

_2:31 PM_

Mayor Pricilla walked the long hall down to his office. The prison walls surrounded her, their white hue dampening the atmosphere as though to suffocate and suck the life out of it. The air was cold and felt as though it were getting colder. There was a bite in the air as despite the cold it felt as dry as a desert.

Before ascending to its floor, she took a turn to look over the prisoners. The cells were mostly empty, cage doors gaping open as though awaiting fresh blood. She walked by other cells from which she often heard a gasping; a guttural sound as though the mammals within were struggling for every breath. Emaciated faces looked out at her, skeletal and gaunt as though they were remnants of a diseased population.

And now, as she walked the upper levels, she found the decay that had filled those cells surrounding her in another way. And she embraced it.

Pale lights flickered along the way, the halls she was walking somehow changed from how she’d seen it before. It was less ornate, less full of splendour and wonder, and it seemed to her briefly, just as she reached the doors, that everything she had experienced up to that point had been illusory.

She slowly reached for the handle to the door of its office.

“Come in!” called a loud voice from within.

The pig flinched and gasped before setting her face resolutely and opening the door.

“You know I don’t like it when you do that,” she called as she stepped inside, closing the door behind her.

“What’s that to me?” came the reply.

The office was a veritable shroud of darkness, dense and impenetrable, which surpassed expectation in both the best and worst ways. There was such an awful stillness the likes of which she’d never felt before, and it sent a tremor of fear shuddering through her body. The cold barrenness seemed to increase a thousand fold, and she was nearly brought to her knees.

By and by, it seemed as though the darkness were ebbing away and coalescing. It gathered thick in places like waves on the surface of the water, coalescing and becoming a mass in the middle of the room, withdrawing from the edges of her vision.

She took a deep breath and blinked. When she opened her eyes again, there it was— he was sitting before her, now at his desk as though nothing had been strange or odd at all.

“You’ve been away too long,” he murmured.

The thing sat facing her, though its head was tilted up toward the ceiling, as though in deep thought.

“I was busy.”

“You don’t have to lie. You think I can’t read you like a book?”

She grunted and stepped further into the office.

“You’re sickened by my company. You know, you wouldn’t be if you spent more time in my presence. We’ll be doing so a lot. When the time comes.”

“Last I checked, I still have my freedom.”

“You do, but you also bound yourself to me, and that entails certain responsibilities on your part.”

“Only if you do what I asked!”

Now he looked at her.

“You sought me out to help you solve your pred problem— you asked me for the influence . . . and I gave it to you. I took you and your ideas someplace your predecessors never could. Now you have the run of the city. Or most of it save those few pockets of rebellion. You’ve managed, with me at your side, what no one could have.”

“Bellwether could ha-”

“No, she couldn’t. Sure, she has her little sheep cult, and with time she might’ve been able to accomplish something to the effect of what you were both looking for, but I was the battering ram, and you know that. Now, you get the glory—or the blame. Depends on the winner.”

Pricilla nodded. “Not to be rude, but why did you call me down here.”

The pig thought she saw a spark in his eyes before nodding curtly.

“There is . . . something in the city. An annoying gnat tugging on certain threads.”

“What’s that? We got rid of Hopps.”

“No, not her. There’s been another incursion. Three. I felt them earlier yesterday.”

“You mean, like you?”

“No, two of them not so much. The third one, the one that rent the gate, that one . . . I know it well.”

“Are you talking about that whatever-the-hell-it-is that’s been sighted? That’s been killing my officers?!”

“I am.”

She looked at him aghast as anger surged through her. “Do something about it! You’ve just been standing by whi-!”

“Silence!” he shouted as he stood. “I don’t have the power to fight it, which is why the time between then and now must be spent most preciously by you and me!”

The terrified mammal let out a squeal as she shrank back from the menacing figure before her.

“I said nothing about it,” the thing started, “because I don’t have the power to fight him. I’m going to have to call on certain reserves of mine in order to do it.”

“I thought you were more powerful than that,” she smirked.

“Stronger than you,” he said, his eyes darkening. “The majority of my power is bound up in you at this moment which means that if I need to fight this creature, I’ll tear myself from your entrails and gain back every inch of might available.”

Pricilla whimpered in her throat.

“But now,” the thing continued, “that that Nemesis is here, I’ll have to bide more cautiously.”

“Why can’t you just locate him?”

“Because my power’s being used to help you,” he said, eyeing her harshly.

“Does he have an anchor, too?”

“He would have to,” nodded the thing.

“Then why not locate his anchor and kill it?”

“Because my power’s being used to help  _you_.”

“Then what are you suggesting?!”

“First!” he shouted again, pounding his fist on the desk before him, “I’ll ask you not to take that tone with me again or I’ll stake you in that field and let you become fodder for the next firing squad!”

She shrank back again.

“Ah,” he said in a deceptively low voice, “I see your thoughts most clearly now. You made a mistake thinking that I serve you in any way; it just so happens that I’m on your side. I could just as easily have been on  _theirs_ , and you might have ended up on their plates. Did I ever tell you that I whispered in Lionheart’s ear, too?”

She shook her head tremblingly.

“I did. I came to him in a dream, and I showed him everything the world could be. I showed him a land without collars; a land where prey animals were his Sunday dinners; a land where he ruled as a king; but he woke up weeping, his wife comforting him as he hugged himself, looking almost like a cub again. He was a true believer in the goodness of others. A lion of true compassion, if hapless at times. But you . . . your ambitions were different. Driven by vengeance and rage and anger, hanging on to ancient grudge, you gave in to my will and wrapped yourself around me.”

“I didn’t know that you were a pred too, at the time!”

“But I promised to be out of your hair, too. I told you that I could get rid of all the preds in Zootopia, and that’s nearly done. Now we just have to keep them out. Don’t you get it? I’ve fulfilled my side of the bargain, and it’s about time you start holding up yours! You made the proverbial deal with the Devil, and your wish has come true. Now, there’s only one pred left in the city, basically, and that’s me; and I’ll be gone as soon as you do as I ask.”

She nodded carefully. “I’m only allowing you this,” she said, “because you’re holding every card. We can’t get rid of the preds in this city without you.”

“Only a super predator can take down a pred,” he chuckled.

“So, what’s going on that you needed me here? You said there was nothing I could do about that one jerk so what did you want?”

He barked out a laugh. “What I want is for you to initiate a city-wide cull.”

“Against whom?” asked the pig as she looked at the being.

“Everyone in Little Rodentia. I want it destroyed.”

The pig looked at him stunned. “What the-?”

“They have an underground network which they’ve been using to hide and store information for a group called COR who’s been resisting the forces of authority here in Zootopia.”

“They aren’t all on the side of COR!”

“They’re a gated community and insular, and insular groups make for thinking alike. If one resists, they’ll likely  _all_  resist in time. Their greatest strength lies in being underestimated. They can build tunnels, and probably already have, to sneak information in and out of the city and to COR. You may not be aware of it, but there is movement out there.  _Fast_  movement. The preds in the city had to leave their information behind, and now their operatives within the city are mobilising and destroying whatever evidence they can in order to deliver it straight into the hands of this organisation. The faster we hunt down and destroy those preds, stopping this war before it begins, the faster I can destroy that creature’s anchor; and the faster I do that, the faster it is he leaves, the faster I can finish my end of the deal.”

The pig paced for a moment in deep thought. “How should we proceed? Against Little Rodentia?”

“A steamroller should do it. If it were me, I might try inciting a scurry and driving them into the sea. They have poor night vision—I recommend letting the tide sweep them out.”

“Maybe seven?”

“Seven o’clock sounds good. Get the hogs and sheep on it. And get ready to spin the story.”

“Right . . . they were trying to take down Zootopia, right?”

“That’s right.”

She nodded and began to walk away.

“Oh, one more thing!” he called. “Come here,” he said, a sly smile on his face.

“What’s that?” she asked as she reached him.

Before she knew it her arm was on the table, twisted horribly as the daemon grabbed her. She’d barely had a chance to scream out in pain before she howled as he staked a knife through her forearm, nailing her to the table.

“I just wanted to tell you,” he said as she squealed, tears running down her face, “that you are  _never_  to speak to me so informally ever again, do I make myself clear? If you have questions about my plan save them until you can hold your tongue to a more civil mode of thought. Otherwise, I may forget our bargain and form a new bond with someone else, is that clear?”

She nodded.

“Look into my eyes,” he commanded.

And she did.

And in them, she saw not her own reflection but a vision of her life. She saw crowds gathered before her shouting adulation and praise, hailing her as their saviour from the scourge of predkind everywhere. Her vision of perfection, of a husband and piglets, of a life of luxury, a life of ease and comfort—it all belonged to her! It could all be hers . . . if she only did as he asked.

She cried out in pain again as he jerked the knife again, shearing off a good hunk of her forearm. She cried out and tried to pull away, instinctively trying to grip her arm, but his fingers sank into her.

“Don’t forget what I am,” he murmured.

He withdrew his hand and she looked down just as stunned at her completely-healed arm, not a blemish nor mark upon it. Her blood was spattered everywhere around them, on his desk and face.

“But I can also give you what you want,” he finished as she marvelled at her healed arm.

She felt his cold look seep into her, and acceptance wash over her.

She had willingly embraced this path, determined to do whatever it took to reach the end.

She had seen the vision in his eyes and had seen it on the night she’d first met him.

She turned and went from his presence, leaving behind her the ornately decorated room and stepping back out into the desolate halls. And as she walked away, she gave no thought to the nothingness that lay behind his promises; no realisation to the barrenness of the halls she was walking. And she most definitely gave no thought at all to the fact that, as lavishly decorated as his office was, when all subtracted, it was just as deserted, just as drab as the halls she was walking.

-.-.-.-

_2:40 PM_

“What’s your plan, then?” asked the bunny as the two of them rode along.

The badger sat at the wheel, speeding along, and Hopps felt a little sick at the rumble she felt beneath her as Honey whipped the truck this way and that along patches of road alternating between being dirt paths or blacktopped.

“We have to move quickly. It’s sunset in about two hours and we have to mobilise. I’ve already alerted my contacts in the city to be at the ready. They said they could be ready at about six or seven which means we need to head out, fast.”

“What time do you have? That clone has my phone!” said Hopps as she folded her arms.

“Relax, Judy,” said Honey.

“No, I  _won’t_  relax! You showed me that vid. There’s something out there. Something  _dangerous_. And it’s looking for those two doubles. What if they really are from another universe? What if they’re in league with that . . . thing?”

“The Human?” asked Honey. “I don’t think they are,” she finished when Hopps nodded. “You had a very specific feeling when you confronted that thing at Searton, and I don’t think you’ve had that feeling.”

“Yeah, but there’s just something . . .  _off_  about them.”

Honey chuckle. “It probably has to do with you feeling weird that you’re mated to a fox! Either way,” she started, becoming more serious, “we need to keep a close eye on them. There’s something they’re hiding. I know it.”

“You  _know_  it?”

Honey relented. “I have a  _feeling_. Why? You think they’re being straight with us?” asked the badger.

“I know myself, and I know how good at lying I am.”

“That’s  _if_  she’s really you.”

“You still don’t think-”

“ _I_  don’t know  _what_  to think,” she said, inclining her head slightly toward the bunny. “I know that there’s a lot of crazy shit going down. Strange creatures murdering cops before vanishing into thin air—an  _exact_  copy of you and Nick walking around and claiming to be from another universe? Half of me is telling me to shut this all down and call BS on it while the other half is telling me that I need to act like it’s true. We have The Human—a species there’s only one of and who has  _no parallel_ to any living being in the city; two other . . .  _clones_ , I guess, walking around and claiming to be from another universe; and then we have this other thing poking around the city and disappearing into thin air.”

“Do you think they’re agents?”

“Red and Carrots?”

Hopps nodded.

“Maybe, but I don’t know. We could just do a DNA test on them and make sure once and for all.”

“That’d take care of a lot of things. Oh! Look out for this curve!” said Hopps as they rounded the corner sharply as they headed home. The tires squealed and Hopps held on as the truck tipped.

“This is my brother’s car. Not sure you wanna damage it,” said Hopps.

“Re _lax_. You know I’m a safe driver.”

Hopps huffed as she settled back into her skin.

“Anyway, what were we saying?” said the badger.

Hopps took a moment to gather her thoughts. “I think we were talking about how we needed to be especially careful about those doubles.”

Honey nodded. “Their room’s right next to the one you and Nick were in last night.”

“I know! They’re in  _my_  room. Gonna kick’em out at soon as we get back.”

“Hold off on that, actually. It’d be neat to see how they respond to a modicum of diplomacy.”

“I just don’t want them in there.”

“Is that it? Or is it that you don’t like your twin?”

Hopps stopped in thought for a moment. “I guess I just think it’s weird to see a version of yourself who didn’t have to fight the way I had to.”

“There was probably still prejudice in her Zootopia. In fact, I know there was, given everything she told me. She started out a lot like you. Just the same, actually. But she never had to witness the things you witnessed. Things got bad there for a while, but she was able to rectify it all.”

“Well, great for her! Did you  _see_  the animals in there! I’ve torn apart the city!”

“Oh, my dear,” said the badger, adopting a maternal air, “if the city was so easily broken by just one bunny then it was broken to begin with. I don’t think that there was ever any real trust between the prey and pred animals that started out in Zootopia. The truce was historically tenuous at best going back seventy years when they reconstituted the city.”

“And that’s one thing that gets me:” started Hopps, “Why was the city reconstituted in the first place if they were just going to try and segregate everyone anyway?”

“Oh, I know you must have some idea why! Same thing that drives Bunnyburrow, I think.”

“Land and resources?” asked Hopps. She nodded to herself and looked up at the badger as she drove. Honey nodded back. “Some wanted to share and some didn’t,” continued the bunny.

“You guys do a good job of getting along with each other here,” said Honey, “but that’s because everybody here gets to know everybody else. Your children get to know each other; everybody lives in the dens and houses they’ve built for themselves. There’s no designated ‘poor area’ of town, and everybody goes to the same massive school in the middle of town. The thing’s practically a mine shaft . . . .”

“And in the city, everyone’s alone and isolated,” mused Hopps.

“No, they aren’t,” said Honey; “at least, not necessarily. Cities tend to be places where everyone can share their various cultures. But . . . but they  _can_  have segregationist designs built into them. Zootopia was built to have a varnish of equality and equal opportunity while also undermining certain key aspects of equal rights. For one thing, freedom to discriminate was allowed.”

“Well, if everyone has freedom, the freedom to discriminate seems like something that animals’d have to have,” Hopps pondered.

“Maybe, but what happens when a large percentage of the population discriminate against you?” said the badger. “I mean, we preds have a right to live, don’t we? To what extent does the right to discriminate extend? And what does discrimination look like? It looks like that cull you saw. Individuals will tear your dignity to shreds if you let them. If you give them the opportunity to see you as less equal, less valuable, and less worthy to live, they’ll not only see you that way, they’ll treat you that way, too.”

“So, you have to discriminate against those who discriminate?”

“It’s a wonderful catch 22, isn’t it?”

Hopps smiled to herself. “So how do you know what’s right and what’s wrong?” she asked.

Honey sighed. “You don’t. You just have to do your best, and live and die with your stupid ideas.”

Hopps let out a mirthless laugh. “So what’s the plan?” she asked, changing the subject to more practical matters.

“Well, it’s nearly . . .” she paused as she checked her phone, “nearly two forty-five. I need to answer a bunch of texts when we get back; I’m being messaged like crazy. I want you to see if you can listen in to Red and Carrots and see what they’re up to and what their plans are.”

Honey pulled into a parking space in the long driveway up to the Hopps’ residence.

“Let’s see . . . I’m trying to get there at six thirty at night . . . .”

“And Zootopia’s 211 miles away,” interrupted Hopps, “which means that . . . in how much time were you wanting to get there?”

“Let’s see . . . it’s two fifteenish now, and we need time to mobilise—maybe two or three hours to gather enough mammals and devise a plan. So maybe. . . fiveish?”

“You want to leave at five?” said Hopps, lifting her eyebrow incredulously. “I can tell you it’s not gonna work if you need to get there at six thirty. We have, like, an hour to think of a plan and then we’d  _have_  to go.”

“Well, we can’t afford to go in without some time to plan.”

“We may have to. Even if you drove at around 105 miles an hour, you’d have a two-hour drive. At the more reasonable seventy miles an hour, you’re looking at three hours.”

“And how fast would we have to go if we wanted to make it in one?”

The bunny just stared at her, a look of disbelief on her face. “Are you serious?”

“What? You’re the math wiz, not me!”

“You’d have to go 211 miles an hour.”

“Damn, that was quick.”

“It’s not . . . ! If you wanna travel 211 miles in one hour you obviously have to travel 211 miles an hour!”

“Amazing the things math is useful for,” said the badger as she sauntered up the drive.

“Okay, but you were joking right?” said Hopps as she dashed after the badger. “Right?!” she called again.

-.-.-.-

_2:57 PM_

“Things could have been worse,” said Nick as both he and Judy walked down the stairs into the main commons.

“I’ll just be glad when all this is over. I just wanna go back to being a cop.”

Nick nodded as he followed her.

“I know the feeling—getting into a routine is good for that,” said Nick. “And I know you—you’re gonna need one. One good thing about the town hall, at least, was I got to meet all your brothers and sisters over again.”

Judy snorted as they reached the landing and walked off down the tribute to their room.

“Just be glad Justin was nice enough to give us a lift.”

“I was just thinking that I don’t really know your family all that well.”

“It might take some time for them to get used to you. Also, try keeping your voice down—bunnies have ears,” she whispered.

He nodded and grinned to himself as he reached a paw forward and gently stroked her ear. She let out a contented hum as they kept on.

“I never really got the chance to meet your mom, though,” said Judy in reply.

“Yeah, well, she mostly keeps to herself. It’s mostly my fault for turning her into the worrier you met, though.”

“Love wouldn’t be so hard if it weren’t for individuals. Oh, what time did Honey say she wanted us ready?”

“In about two hours,” said Nick casually as they reached the door to their room. “Enough time to shower and rest up for whatever she’s planning.”

“Yeah, but what  _time_?”

“Four fifty, she said. I dunno how she plans to make it there at sixish, ‘cause at best it’s looking like we’ll be there at seven.”

“Unless we take the monorail . . .” said Judy, pausing.

“Monorail?” asked Nick. “The heavily guarded monorail?”

“At it’s fastest, it can go 375 miles an hour. We could be there in about thirty minutes if we wanted!”

Nick stood aside as Judy opened the door and ushered her inside with a gesture of his arms. Just as he stepped in, he noticed Hopps down at the other end of the hall, giving him a hard look.

He could put his finger on why, but he was singularly unnerved by her stare. It seemed to him as though her gaze were trying to lance him, and he wondered whether she were taking out her anger at what Wilde had said on  _him_. Nick gave a small wave, eliciting no reaction from her. He smiled nervously and turned to go in, closing the door behind him.

The drive back to the house had been spent making small talk with Justin and Jasper. Hopps and Honey had insisted on taking Jaspers truck, saying that they needed to talk things out between the two of them. Justin had sought Nick out immediately after the meeting, thinking he was Wilde.

Nick had come  _this close_  to having the shit beat out of him for the awfully insensitive comment that he’d made about Hopps. Thankfully, Judy had stepped in and assured Justin that he was just Wilde’s body double. Now, at least, they were home and in what felt like a safe place.

Judy flopped onto the bed, feeling wrung out after the lengthy and hot-tempered meeting.

Nick followed her into the room. He began unbuttoning his shirt, consciously aware of Judy as she watched him from her relaxed position.

“Enjoying the show?” he asked as he waggled an eyebrow, allowing a flirtatious smirk to cross his lips.

“Always. But a hint of subtlety might be nice,” she replied.

“What?” he asked, seeming genuinely confused, “I’m just gonna take a shower,” he finished innocently.

She smirked to herself and looked back up at the ceiling.

“That meeting was really bad,” she murmured, changing the subject.

Nick tossed his shirt to the side and started with his pants. “I know,” he huffed, wincing in pain slightly as he stepped out of them. He winced again when he reached down to toss them over where he’d left his shirt.

“You okay?” asked Judy when she heard him let out a small grunt, turning slightly to look over at him. She couldn’t help but admire his naked form—his fur looked so soft and inviting save some of the rough-looking places along his chest and shoulders and down along his sides where he’d been beaten.

“Yeah, it’s just more of an ache at the moment,” he replied with a slight grunt.

“Need any help?” she offered as she rolled to her side.

“Nah, I think I can manage,” he said with a sigh of relief as he stood straight. “Towels?”

“In the closet. If not, I’ll just ask Mom— _Mrs. Hopps_ —for some.” She sighed sadly.

Nick read her disappointment and regarded her sadly. He sighed as he stepped toward her. “You know, Jasper might’ve been right: Maybe your mom already  _does_  know. You might not have to pretend with her.”

Judy turned to lay flat again and stayed silent for a moment before answering. “We promised Honey we’d at least  _try_. If we pretend well enough, maybe we can pull this off. You  _know_  how serious she is about plugging leaks, and we’re a  _big_  one.”

“You’re worried she could  _hurt_  us?” asked Nick incredulously. Of course, Nick knew the badger  _could_  hurt them if she wanted to, but she struck him as too even-tempered to do that.

Judy shook her head slightly. “No, not  _that_. I mean, I guess she means well. I just don’t know . . . I dunno,” she finished, getting lost in thought.

Nick turned to the closet and pulled out a towel and turned around to see Judy staring at him.

“What?” he asked with a sly grin.

“Your tail’s just so floofy!” she giggled.

“If you love it so much, why don’t you marry it?”

“I’ll do it one better and marry  _you_. Two for the price of one.”

Nick chuckled and walked over to her, bending down over the bed to kiss her.

“And what do I get?” he asked as he pulled away.

“The best cop on the force,” she smiled. “Someone needs to get you out of trouble.”

He kissed her again.

“Why don’t you shower with me?” he asked. “Save some water?”

Her smile widened. “I know what you’re up to,” she said knowingly.

“I honestly just wanna shower. But I mean, I wouldn’t be against doing anything else, if you wanted.” And he meant it, too: He wasn’t aiming for anything higher than just spending time with her.

She smiled before abruptly sitting up. “Alright!” she said.

She hopped off the bed and began undoing her blue shirt. She folded it and set it on a chair next to the door before starting on her pants. No sooner had she unbuttoned them than she felt Nick’s arms around her, sliding his paws around to her bare chest before slowly allowing them to roam down to her pants.

“What’re you doing,” she asked flatly in spite of her trembling heart.

“Helping you,” he replied, a smile in his voice as he unzipped her pants.

She smirked and let out a tiny laugh. She sighed as she leant back against him. They stood there for a moment and just relaxed. Judy put her paws over his as he gently massaged her belly and sides, lightly grazing her fur.

After a few moments of the two of them breathing together, relaxing, she gently guided his paws back down to her pants, dipping into them.

“You sure?” asked Nick as he let his middle finger lightly reach between her thighs.

Judy let out shuddering gasp but felt a wave of responsibility wash over her.

“Nick, maybe we shouldn’t-” she said.

“Oh?” he asked as he looked down at her. “We have two hours to ourselves-”

“They might need us before then-!”

“-and you’ve been needy all day.”

The insides of her ears blushed.

“I was hoping to hide it,” she said with a hint of embarrassment in her voice.

“You’re in heat?”

She gently shook her head. “No, we don’t have that.”

“Bunnies?”

“Bunnies,” she confirmed.

“Well, then how-?”

“We start our cycle about ten hours after . . .” she trailed off, embarrassed to finish.

“After sex?” asked Nick grinning behind her, feeling no such shame.

She nodded.

“How long does it last?”

Here, Judy cringed slightly. “Till I get pregnant . . . which, I mean, we’re different species and I don’t think we c-”

“Shhh,” said Nick. “Don’t think about that,” he said as he petted her gently. He swayed back and forth slightly in a bid to soothe her. “We’ll be alright,” he affirmed.

She nodded. “I just . . . didn’t want you to feel obligated. And I was kinda embarrassed about it. I mean, you were embarrassed about . . .” she trailed off again.

“My knot, yeah. I just didn’t know how you’d take it.”

“Phrasing,” she giggled in a bid to ease her discomfort and break the tension.

Nick barked a laugh before snuggling her.

“Don’t worry about it. It’s outta the bag now, Jude,” he said, trying to put her at ease. “Have I ever tried to hide the fact that I was horny from you?”

“Yes. That’s the whole reason we didn’t have sex till two nights ago!”

“Okay, but besides that,” he said placatingly.

“Again, yes! When we first started going out, you were probably trying to hide your horniness from me all the time.”

“Okay, but after that?”

She sighed. “No. If I recall correctly, we were in the middle of making out when you asked me if you could go down on me.”

“I’m very generous that way,” he returned haughtily.

Judy snorted. “Yeah, right. You probably just wanted to go first so that I’d feel like I had to return the favour.”

“And you didn’t when I asked, which was very rude of you.”

She spun around to regard him with a hint of annoyance. She stopped when she saw the playful look on his face.

“I had to start somewhere,” she said lamely as she turned back to the chair and continued with her pants.

Nick’s arms found themselves in the same place as before as she started pushing down her trousers, finding herself having to work around his paws.

She rolled her eyes again but winced in pleasure when Nick gently ran his finger through the slight dampness at the joining of her thighs.

He gently lifted her and let her pants slide off her feet before setting her back down.

He pulled her so her body was flush against him, her head against his upper chest.

He nuzzled the top of her head before moving down to kiss her neck.

“Anyway, after that first paw job,” he spoke, “did I ever try hiding it?” he said as she gently stroked one of her ears lightly. Her jaw quivered at his touch. His more sensuous touching along her ear awoke more longing within her. He stopped when he felt her knees buckle.

“Well, did I?” he asked again in a sensual whisper, his breath soft in her ear.

“A little,” she giggled. “But I get your point,” she said as she felt herself begin to melt in her core.

“I just don’t want you to feel like you have to hide that from me.”

She giggled again as he withdrew his paw. She turned to look at him.

“Because it means you get to score,” she said as she hooked an eyebrow.

He looked at her intently. “Because it means I get to please my mate.” His voice had become serious and the playful look was banished from his face, replaced with a seriousness that matched his own feelings toward her. “I just want you to be happy with me,” he finished, his eyebrows knit with concern.

“Oh, Nick!” she reached out and touched his cheek, “I  _am_  happy with you!”

He kissed her gently and she kissed him back, her arms vining up his chest and around his neck.

They broke the kiss and smiled at each other before Judy stepped away, took his paw, and led him to the bed.

“Are you sure?” asked Nick sarcastically. “They may call us back earlier than you said and-”

“Oh, quiet, Nick!” she laughed, “You started it!”

Nick smiled as he watched Judy lie on the bed. He pulled her legs, turning her so her legs were hanging sideways off the edge.

“What’re you . . . ?” she started as Nick knelt down.

She let out a grateful sigh and closed her eyes when she felt Nick’s warm tongue lave her entrance.

He passed his tongue a few more times over the folds of her clit before he looked over the edge of the bed at her.

“You know,” said Nick, “this isn’t the first time in history that a fox has-”

“I swear, Nick, if you make another joke about a fox eating a bunny, all bets’re off and I’m going straight to the shower,  _alone_.”

Nick smiled grimly. “Duly noted . . .” he trailed before gazing back down at her lush nether region.

“You have no idea how beautiful you are. I’m just so lucky to have you,” he said as he looked over at her.

He moved down and went back to his ministrations. “You could’ve picked anyone,” murmured Nick in between mawing her, “but you picked me,” he dipped his tongue, “a no good hustler.”

Judy let out a moan, her breaths becoming ragged. “Y-you aren’t a no good hustler . . . you never w-were!”

He looked over at her for a moment.

“You have a beautiful spirit,” he whispered as he worked her, “a beautiful body,” Judy ran her fingers through the fur on his head and moaned, “and a beautiful mind . . .” he trailed.

Judy was nearing her edge quickly.

“If I hadn’t fallen in love with you,” he said as her cries became more intense, “I never would have known how precious someone could be to me.”

“Nick!” she cried out tremblingly, “I love you!”

“Are you close?” he asked as he paused for a moment, looking down at her, again.

“Y-yes. It’s just . . . right on the edge . . .” she sighed.

Nick dipped back down and started working her again.

He parted her folds slightly and licked her clit directly.

“Stop!” she said, slightly more sharply.

“What’s the matter?” he asked, quickly lifting his head.

“That . . . that doesn’t feel good. Just, lick around the outside of it,” she said.

“Sorry,” he said, his ears slightly flattened.

“It’s fine, just, how could you have known?”

“So just . . . ?”

“Lick the outside, lick over it, just not the actual . . . .”

“Pearl, got it!” said Nick, a smile back on his face.

She sighed again and let out a moan as he dipped his long tongue into her. She felt him tasting her, ravishing her, as he tried to bring her to the edge.

He worked her outer folds masterfully; her moans were music to his ears.

She was right on the edge, and Nick watched as she began to arch her back upward, her sweet hips into him.

“F-faster! A-and d-deep . . . deeper!”

He rolled his long tongue inside her and wet her through and through, tasting her sweet flesh.

He felt her body warm as his hands as he worked his jaw faster and faster on her folds, his tongue dipping and folding, his mouth sucking on her beautiful body.

“God, I love you, Judy!” he murmured into her body.

“Nick, I- _I . ._ _.!_ ”

She was gasping and suddenly felt Nick’s mouth leave her. She looked up and could barely think to speak before she suddenly felt a hard thrust as Nick entered her.

She let out a cry, her senses heightening as she felt his hardness gently stretch her, a delightful, firm pressure filling her from within.

Nick leant down over her and, without preamble, she felt him begin to move his hips, quickly pistoning them as he filled her with each stroke.

“Oh, God!” she moaned.

He buried his nose into her neck. “I love you, Judy!”

She clutched his back. “D-don’t stop, I’m-!”

“I don’t know how or what possessed you to give me a chance,” he exclaimed, the pleasure surging through him, “but I’m glad you did!”

The edge toward which she’d been working came closer quickly. His body over hers, his words of love, and the way he smelled as he thrust had her at the edge and tumbling over in pleasure almost as soon as he’d started.

Nick let out a grunt as she felt her tiny body grip him, pulsing around him and begging him for his seed, feeling a glorious pull on his member as he pushed in and out.

His feet were still on the floor, his claws gripping it for traction as he thrust. He wanted to finish her off with a bang and succeeded.

He watched in warm satisfaction as she came calling his name as she gave in to pleasure, falling into a cascade of delight; and he bent down and kissed her again and again as she broke around him.

She looked into his eyes, wanting him to see and feel what he had done to her.

Their kisses continued as he rode out her pleasure, wanting to prolong it in her as long as he could, until at last, it subsided.

She was breathing heavily, looking up at him lovingly.

“Good?” he asked wearing a shy smile.

She nodded. “ _Very_  good.”

Nick kissed her and pulled out, pushing himself back up to a standing position with his paws. He took a moment to stretch his knees, the taughtness with which he’d held them needing a bit of relief.

He watched her scooch over on the bed properly. She raised her eyebrow and looked at him expectantly.

She’d never felt so sexual before in her life as she looked at him, her body needing more.

“What do you want?” he asked playfully as he got onto the bed.

He leant over her and settled his waist between hers. With his paw, he set himself at her opening and pushed into her lush folds, wet and wanting him as their smooth sensuality wrapped around him again.

He moved and rested his weight on his forearms as he seated himself within her to the base before leaning in close, his body shielding hers.

She leant up slightly to his ear and whispered, embarrassment coursing through her and reddening her ears. “I . . . I need you to come inside me.”

He pushed back slightly to look at her. He leant down and kissed her and began to thrust.

“Really?” he murmured as he kissed her.

She nodded. “It releases hormones that tell my body to . . . to cool it for a bit. And I . . . it makes me feel closer to you.”

“I feel close to you too, Judy,” he whispered. “I waited so long for someone to love me,” he kissed her, “for someone to see me.”

“I see you!” she whispered. She kissed him, and they continued kissing as she wrapped her legs around him, and he deepened his slow movements as he plumbed her depths, wanting to feel all of her as he slowly moved his hips.

She broke the kiss and began to gasp as she wrapped her paws around him, feeling the strong, taught muscles of his back as his body worked over her for their mutual pleasure.

 _‘God, Judy!’_  his mind shouted as he buried his nose in her fur, closing his eyes and gritting his teeth as he continued his movements, grunting gently in his throat as he felt the pull of her cunny on his member.

It was just enough to be inside her, it was enough to have her in his arms, it was enough to hear her call his name in that way that reassured him that he was right where he belonged—with a mate who would love him for the rest of his life.

Her sighs in his ear urged him as he continued, his arms and paws running along her side. He moved and looked down into her eyes as he moved. He saw her face, her shuddering breaths, her pleading sighs as he moved.

She looked up at him and saw everything she ever wanted for her in a mate. A strong will, a playful nature, good wits; he was brave and stable. He knew who he was, and he knew who he was with her.

“H-hurry,” she moaned, looking deeply into his gentle, green eyes, “w-we don’t have long and . . . “ she paused, gasping as he filled her, stroking every inch of her pleasure points, “I want you to knot me . . . w-we need time . . . !”

He nodded as he gazed at her and began to stroke faster.

Her lip trembled, and he watched her look up at the ceiling and close her eyes as he quickened his paces. She let out a shuddering gasp and looked back at him.

“Judy!”

“Nick!” she breathed as she felt him slowly speed up.

His paws wrapped around her back, gripping her tightly and holding her in place as he began to move faster.

“Oh, God, Nick . . .  _yes_!” her last word a whisper as she felt the ache within her deepen and swell.

“Yes!” she moaned again as she felt him quicken. She looked into his eyes again as the pleasure he gave her began to build.

“J-Judy!” he groaned again before kissing her deeply.

The bed beneath them creaked loudly as Nick changed positions slightly, stiffening his body somewhat as he began to piston himself into her quickly, driving himself into her depths again and again.

She let her fingers trail down his back as he plunged into her again and again. Her skin felt as though it were burning, as though the light touch of warm liqueur were in her veins.

She felt his knot swelling, she saw the look in his eyes, both of them knowing what was about to happen.

“Nick!” she said weekly in a haze of pleasure as the warming seeped into her loins, sharpening the edge of the pleasure she was feeling. Before she had a chance to brace for it, she felt her body shatter with ecstasy. She let out a shout as it took her by surprise.

“Oh, God!” bit out Nick as he felt her tighten around him. He felt himself swell, and in a moment of total stillness to him, he leant down and kissed her.

His hips continued driving into her gripping folds before he felt himself lock, her lush petals closing around the back of his knot.

He broke off the kiss and let out a grunt.

“Oh! Judy!”

And then he came.

Judy watched his half-lidded eyes gaze into hers as he began to spill into her.

“Ah! God!” he shouted in exaltation as he felt himself pulse, her delicate flesh setting fire to his member as it gripped every inch of his length.

She let out a moan as the swelling of his knot sent a warm tightening sensation through her, and she felt as though the incredible sensation were melting her like butter.

Nick bit out his pleasure as he arched into her, at last raising his head toward the ceiling. He wanted to howl but instead let out sharp shouts as he lost himself in a wave of euphoria as he gave his seed to his mate.

“Judy!” he shouted.

“C-cum inside me!” she cried as she rode out her own orgasm.

“I am! I-” He was cut off by the sensation as he throbbed.

They both vaguely heard the sound of something clashing and crashing and wondered if they’d accidentally knocked something over.

As their pleasure subsided, they looked down at each other.

“I want you, Judy,” breathed Nick.

“Nick!” she whispered, “I’m yours. I want you, too!”

He nuzzled her slightly, sentimentality coming over him as he looked down at her. “Will you be my mate?”

“A-always!” she breathed.

He kissed her deeply, holding her tightly, and she kissed him back. She felt his heat spread within her, deeply.

He held her like that for a few minutes before stirring.

Carefully, he rolled them to their sides and then moved them so he was on his back.

“Yeah . . .” breathed Nick, “we’re gonna be together now for a little while. Judy . . . that was . . . good . . . .”

“Right back atcha,” she murmured as she breathed slowly before settling on him to rest.

-.-.-.-

Hopps watched as the doubles disappeared into their room— _her_  room—while that stupid fox awkwardly waved at her.

She honestly hadn’t intended to be so obvious, but the sight of the two of them together in such a familiar way. . . somehow put her off guard. She continued down the hall and into the mini common-area. She’d taken her time going down stairs, not really wanting to follow Wilde down after that debacle at the meeting. It wasn’t that she felt angry at him, though she had every reason to, it was that he seemed to understand the internal struggle within her, perfectly. Even if she had been aware of the true and far reaching effects that her actions would have had, it didn’t change the fact that Honey still would have needed her on the inside of the ZPD, even if it were just to have an ear on the inside. She had done what she had done because of the sense of responsibility she felt. She’d been taught since she was a child that if you fell apart when the weight of the world were on your shoulders, all that meant was that someone else was going to have to be the responsible one, hold him or herself together, and carry on.

Her work could have been anybody’s job, she reasoned, but she felt the responsibility for it.

The bunny ran a paw through the fur on her head as she walked over to the door to Wilde’s room. She had no idea how he was going to receive her. She had no idea what she was going to say to  _him_.

She gently knocked on the door and wondered as she stood there, waiting for a response, whether he might’ve gone to sleep. She also had a hunch that he might’ve been hiding, trying to escape from the angry stares and fists that were no doubt hunting him after the town hall.

On some level, she knew and understood that his words had been spoken in anger and completely unthinkingly. He’d probably meant his “kill myself” comment to be an honest reflection of how he felt. Maybe he would have crumpled under that kind of weight; maybe he would have shrunk away from seeing himself become, for all intents and purposes, a monster. There was no way for her to know how she should tip the scales of good and evil. Good deeds and bad deeds don’t cancel each other out, she reasoned, unless a good or bad deed undoes the effects of the actions taken. Talking about the good that she’d done for the city didn’t abrogate the evil that she’d done; to do that, she’d have to take action to undo the effects of the propagandas she’d taken part in, and not because she didn’t feel that it was necessary for her to do so at the time but because now, the fallout from those actions was going to bite her in the ass when it came to overt action!

She put her face in her paw.

 _‘There’s so much to do,’_  she lamented.

She knocked on the door again, this time a bit harder, and called out.

“Wilde! You in there?”

“Go away!”

She tried the knob and found it locked. She was in no mood to speak to him. Unfortunately, circumstances required it. “Open the door, I need to do something in there.”

“Yeah right, so you and your brothers can beat the shit out of me for telling the truth? I saw what you tried to do to Red when it was time to go.”

Judy felt that sting and backed away. “Nick, this isn’t a setup, I just need to do something in there! And for your information, I didn’t ask  _anyone_  to go after you  _or_  Red.”

No response.

“Wilde?”

Again, no response.

She huffed in annoyance and looked around her over to the table that sat in the middle of the room. There were papers, sweepstake letters, and a few dog-eared books. She walked over to it and picked up the letters, feeling them one by one till she found one that had a reasonable ratio between stiff and flexible. She strode back to the door, letter in hand, and slid it between the crack of the door and the doorframe, at the level of the doorknob until she could feel resistance from the latch. She continued sliding it in until she felt it catch and begin to slide forward.

She pushed the envelope and felt the latch give way, the door opening easily.

Wilde heard the rattling but what was happening only when he saw the door swing.

“Hey, hey!” he shouted jumping from the bed, his adrenaline spiking, genuinely scared of what was waiting for him on the other side of the door.

He dashed forward but wasn’t able to make it before Hopps slid in and closed the door behind her.

He stopped in his tracks just short of running into her, his body looming over hers, his arms stretched out to hold the door closed.

He looked down at her and felt his heart stop. He had no doubt that if this little creature wanted to, she could tear him limb from limb. Okay, maybe not limb from limb, but she could take him down pretty hard.

He closed his eyes and braced for the beating he knew was coming, but when nothing happened he opened them to find that the little bunny had disappeared. He searched around himself for a moment before turning around to find the bunny pushing a desk flush against the wall of his room before stacking books on top of it in order to create a makeshift step.

Wilde let his gaze travel up the wall and saw that right above where she was stacking the books there was a vent.

“What are you doing?” asked the fox in a flat voice as he observed Hopps’ movements.

She remained silent as she continued her work.

“Are you gonna spy on them?” he asked, raising an eyebrow.

“Can you please just not talk to me?” she said, looking back at him. “I wouldn’t even be around you if it weren’t for the fact that you’re in the room next to theirs,” she said in a quiet voice. After a beat, “And yeah: I’m going to eavesdrop to see if they reveal anything about themselves.”

Wilde let out a tiny bark of laughter. “Now you don’t wanna talk to me?” Not that he could blame her. Even so, the declaration seemed childish. She looked so innocent that it was hard to take her seriously.

She paused in what she was doing, a few books in her paws, and turned to look at him. “I thought you were the one who didn’t wanna have anything to do with me. You made that pretty clear at the town hall meeting.”

“Oh, come off it!” said Wilde. “Maybe I didn’t say things in the most sensitive way but you know what I meant! You chose to go down a road that you knew might have consequences like these! You can’t act as if you were really acting for  _our_  good. You took a road that tore you apart and you tried to take the easy way out, and now you want our sympathy? You didn’t have to do it. The spying, they lying, spreading lies about my kind! For what? So you could be our saviour?”

“Honey needed someone on the inside. Yeah, sure, there was no guarantee that I’d have any access at all, but I was the one that had the advantage, by simply being close to Swinton and Bellwether.”

“I still think that if you’d really wanted to, you could have let someone else take that job. There’s no reason why it  _had_  to be you.”

“It did have to be me!”

“What makes you think that?”

“Because I feel . . . responsible. When things go to hell, you can’t just fall apart because it just means that other’s’ll have to pick up the pieces. Going to pieces is a luxury I can’t afford. And neither could you. You can’t sit back either. I wanted to strike a blow against Zootopia and I did that.”

“You sure had a lot of negative backlash coming from that, though,” he said sternly. “We were nearly fucked over at the meeting because of you, and you know it.”

“I don’t know what to tell you, Mr. Wilde. I told you that I was sorry, I told you how badly I felt for even having to tacitly endorse the actions of my fellow prey within the city. You  _know_  how sorry I am and how badly I wanna fix this.”

“You can’t. There’s nothing that’s gonna make me think that you’re anything but a selfish and corrupt little prey.”

Hopps jumped back up onto the table as he spoke and set the other books on top of the stack she had.

“As soon as this is over,” he started as she hopped up onto the stack and reached to open the vent between the two rooms, “I want you out of my life! I want this city  _far_  behind me.”

“I hope for your sake, you’re able to let go of your anger,” she said.

“I don’t think I ever could,” he said bitterly. “You’ve cut us so deeply.” He looked up and watched her, the way her face looked as he spoke. She wanted to defend herself but seemed to decide against it, accepting his chastisement as a kind of penance. There was nothing more she could say.

“We have to try to find some way to work together. We’re gonna be seeing a lot of each other,” she said slowly. “None of this was planned, but it’s what we have on our hands.”

“I don’t wanna have anything to do with you, and I can’t see that I ever will!” he shouted.

Hopps sighed softly and turned back to the vent, took a deep breath, and opened the grate.

_“Judy!”_

_“C-cum inside me!”_

_“I am! I-_ ”

Hopps let out a shout and immediately slammed the grill shut as quickly as she could, her blush so bright it shone through her fur. Suddenly unsteady on her feet, the stack of books gave way beneath her as she went crashing down into Wilde below. The books fell against the wall while others clattered on the floor with heavy thuds as they bounced.

He caught her in his paws, the force so great that he was knocked to the floor.

She cried out again as they hit, and she sat up quickly to see Wilde staring up at her with an equally beaming blush on his face. She Jumped off of him quickly, letting out another cry as she stumbled backwards into his nightstand which knocked and tumbled the lamp, clock, and glass of water resting on it.

“S-sorry!” she stammered out as he skidded back from her against the far side of the wall.

“I-I . . .” he stammered before stopping and becoming silent. He looked at her and found her looking at him. He felt his heart flutter and he immediately looked away again.

“Uh . . .” he started slowly. “Maybe spying isn’t a good idea!” he exclaimed.

She nodded furiously in agreement, her ears bent back as her blush, it seemed to him, impossibly seemed to deepen. Dashing toward him quickly, she reached the door he was leaning next to, and got out of the room quickly, Wilde following behind her, hastily slamming the door shut behind them.

Both of them were practically glowing red, and as they stood there huffing and out of breath, they both glanced at each other, catching each other’s eyes, only to look away quickly when they saw each other, suddenly finding the floor of particular interest.

Honey was sitting on one of the cushioned chairs in the middle of the common room, reading through correspondence on her Ibex-pad as she tried to furiously coordinate and keep in contact with some very panicked agents who were stunned at how quickly they were being asked to mobilise.

The badger had looked up in confusion a when she heard the door across from her open and watched as a blushing Wilde and Hopps rushed out of the room and slammed it behind them.

She couldn’t help wondering at the awkward exchange between the two.

Hopps turned and seemed to be making a beeline for the hallway, back to the main common room.

Quirking an eyebrow, Honey quickly jumped up, leaving her pad on the table with a small clack as she rushed over to intercept the bunny. She got in front of the bunny as she walked toward her, and Honey wondered what the hell was going on and why the bunny had left the room so quickly. She’d asked the bunny to spy for her: Security was something that couldn’t be compromised, and Honey couldn’t let her guard down for any moment. She needed information and had half a mind to tell her off— _especially_  in light of the footage she’d shown her!

“Hopps?” said the badger questioningly as the bunny strode toward her. “I thought I told you t-”

“They’re having sex,” said the bunny as she walked past her.

 _‘Oh,’_  thought Honey.  _’Well, then . . . .’_

Honey stood there flustered for a moment, not saying anything for a moment before she remembered the extraordinary blush the bunny wore. She looked over and saw Wilde looking at her.

 _‘No,’_  thought Honey to herself,  _’he’s looking at_ ** _Judy_** _.’_  She smirked and almost started laughing. Now,  _that_  wasn’t an image he was likely to get out of his head. She noted his ears and noted the red hue that touched the inside shell, the blush on his face somewhat difficult to distinguish beneath his red fur.

She walked back over to her seat, looking over at Wilde as she did so.

“Give it about five minutes. Then see if you can listen in. She was listening in through the vents?”

Wilde scowled. “I’m not your lackey.”

Honey stopped. “I’m just asking you for a favour. I have to catch up on correspondence and plan out an attack that we have to carry out in just a few hours. I’d do it myself, but I can’t afford to spend my time on anything except this. Please, could you do that for me?”

The fox nodded slightly. She had a knack for getting others to get along with her, it seemed.

“Sure, alright,” he replied. “But why wait five minutes?”

“Well,” said Honey, “not to slur your virility, but don’t you think five minutes is enough time to let them . . . finish?”

Wilde’s eyes widened and he blushed again and looked away.

“They, uh . . .” he began as red began to brighten beneath his fur, “they  _were_  finishing when we, uh . . . yeah . . . .”

Honey looked at him for a moment before letting out a bark of laughter. “Wow,” she said between bouts of laughter, “she must’ve  _loved_  hearing herself with a . . . with  _you_!”

Wilde fumed, watching as her laughter subsided. He turned from her, muttering to himself, and opened the door before slipping inside, her giggles subsiding behind him.

It was odd, he thought to himself, to see the serious badger who seemed to take to the situation and the challenges it presented so earnestly, crack and burst into laughter.

As he got up on the desk and opened the vent to hear the murmuring voices of his alternate universe self and his mate, he realised that it was Hopps who was behind her mood change. Hopps, for whatever reason, held the key to the badger’s softer side.

He sat down on the bed and thought for a moment before stretching out, letting out a relaxed sigh as he spread out on the bed and opened his ears.

-.-.-.-

As Judy rested and she came back to herself, an odd feeling began to settle on her. She couldn’t quite put her finger on it, but something felt off. She felt as though she needed some kind of reassurance and she didn’t know why.

She wasn’t used to being sexy, and while she was used to being intimate with Nick on so many levels, she felt odd: as though she’d crossed a line somewhere along the way, as though she’d lost a part of herself. Thinking back to the innocent bunny she was when she first started out on the force, she could hardly recognise herself. But maybe that was just foggy perception.

“Nick?” she asked as she lay on his chest, her fingers curling through his chest fur.

“Hmm?” murmured Nick dreamily.

“Do you think I’m a slut?”

Nick’s eyes opened wide and he lifted his head to see her a bit more clearly. “What?” he asked, scarcely sure he’d heard her correctly.

“I mean . . . do you see me as . . . different from the bunny you met?”

“Wha-Judy, no! Never!” he said as he rubbed her sides. He spoke soothingly, seeing the depth of her feeling in her words. “What would make you think that I could ever see you as anything less than perfect?”

“I dunno, Nick, I just feel . . . so self-conscious about this kind of stuff.”

“You mean . . . sex with me?”

“Sex in general,” she corrected. “It was ages in our relationship before I let you . . . you know . . . go down on me.”

“I know. About two months in,” he mused to himself. “And that was after about a month of getting to know me.”

“I know, but you wanted to pretty soon.”

“Well, I just wanted to know what the fuss was about when it came to eati-”

“Niiiiick!” pled Judy as she ruffled his fur.

“Sorry!” he said, half laughingly. “You were saying?”

“Nevermind . . .” she trailed as she rested her head on his chest.

“No, tell me!” he insisted. It was clear that she was feeling conflicted about their relationship and he wanted to know what it was that troubled her.

She continued after a pause. “Well, it’s just that . . . I felt then, and feel now . . . kinda like a slut.”

Nick looked down at her again, confusion and worry coiling in him. He hated hearing her think such a thing of herself.

 _‘Like a_ ** _slut_** _?!’_  he thought, a feeling of protectiveness surging in his chest, and he wrapped his arms around her tightly. A brief thought flashed through his mind as he wondered whether  _he’d_  done something to provoke this unease in her.

“Hey,” started Nick worry for her lacing his voice, “did I-?”

“No!” she interrupted quickly. “No,” she said again, reassuringly as she patted his arm. “It wasn’t you at all. It was me.” She looked into his eyes intimately, hoping to convey some sense of reassurance.

Nick looked puzzled. “When we met, or the second time we met, you made a joke about bunnies being good at multiplying,” he said.

“I know but,” she nodded slightly, “that was mostly bravado. I was raised—I mean  _all_  of us older bunnies were raised to think that sex was a bad thing. All of us were told not to be sluts; not to have sex with anyone we weren’t married to. And if anybody in Bunnyburrow  _did_  have sex, they were married in common-law.”

Nick quirked an eyebrow. “You have common-law marriages here? How? Those are really hard to prove in the city.”

“But not here,” she replied. “What’s needed for a common-law marriage is for two mammals to hold themselves out to be married. I mean, it’s like they have to tell everyone that they’re married and they have to act like partners.”

“Same in the city, but how does having sex equal . . . commitment?”

“Well, all us older kits were taught to associate sex with marriage, right?”

Nick nodded.

“And even though we’re a large place, word gets still around quickly, right?”

Nick nodded again, recalling the town hall meeting—it seemed the entire city had shown up when they’d only started sending texts out two hours before the assembly started. In those two hours, the 81,435,818 plus population seemed to have at least been alerted as to what was happening, and he had no doubt that they were all aware of what had been decided by the council members and even as to which way everyone had voted.

“So, if we were equating sex with marriage,” she said, “and word gets around quick, and if all that’s needed for a common-law marriage is for a couple to hold themselves out to the public as married, then all that’s needed is for a couple to have sex.”

“I’m not following,” said Nick as he knit his eyebrows together in confusion.

“Well, if two animals have sex,  _someone_ ,  _somehow_ , is gonna know about it; that’s just how this place works. And pretty soon the whole city’ll know about it, and since everyone knows about it  _and_  in the minds of every bunny sex equals marriage, by just having sex, you could end up in a common-law marriage. Having sex is the same as holding yourselves out to be married. It is here, anyway. And at that point, you’re expected to go out and get a ‘real marriage.’“

“So . . .” stated Nick slowly, “are we . . . ?”

“I don’t know,” said Judy honestly, her words somewhat muffled by his fur. “Marriages between interspecies couples are so rare I don’t think common-lawcommon-law works the same way in those cases. It does for bunnies in Bunnyburrow because it kinda  _has_  to.”

“What reasons?”

Judy chuckled. “That sex basically equal kits.”

Nick nodded slowly.

“My brother Justin—you know him—used it to marry Elizabeth. Her father was against the two of them marrying, but they wanted to. You have to understand how taboo they made it for us to have sex before marriage. My other siblings, the younger ones, probably don’t care about that stuff anymore. I mean, considering some of the things my sixteen and seventeen-year-old sisters’ve told me, I’d be willing to bet for sure that they were raised differently.”

“What makes you think they were raised different? I mean, what do you think changed?”

She shrugged. “I dunno. Probably because there’s getting to be more of a mix of pred and prey animals at school and there’s a bit of a push to be more like Zootopia; which is fine in some ways and bad in others. Generally, we want this place to be true to itself, you know? We like this place the way it is, and that’s part of the reason why Jasper feels so threatened—he feels like his world is disappearing. It’s why he sticks to the traditions of this place as hard as he does. I mean, he’s nearly thirty, and I’m pretty sure he’s a virgin because he really thinks that the old ways are the right ways. But Justin’s even older and he broke those rules.”

“What happened?” asked Nick.

Judy quirked an eyebrow in a silent question. “Hmm?”

“With Justin and Elizabeth,” he clarified.

“Well . . . her dad didn’t want them to get together, and it was a big deal! They were sure they wanted to spend the rest of their lives together—they’d been together since high school. So, they had a talk—Justin told me—and decided . . . I guess to go out in his truck and pick a secluded space where they could be alone and they . . . .” She couldn’t help but blush deeply.

“Rocked the truck?” Nick supplied, smirking at his mate.

Judy chuckled. “Yeah, I guess you could say that.” She paused and sighed before going on. “He told me that they both felt really bad about it before and after.”

“But not during, huh?” smirked Nick.

Judy chuckled as she spoke. “No, probably not during, gross!” She laughed a bit before she slowly fell into a more serious mood.

“So they felt bad about it?” Nick prompted.

“Yeah,” she started, trying to explain herself, “he said it was because they felt like they’d broken the rules. He was the one who proposed the plan—it was the only thing he could think of—and . . . he said it was a really hard discussion to have.”

“I’d have no trouble asking you for sex,” Nick grinned.

“Consider their circumstances, though!” said Judy. “I mean, wouldn’t you feel like a shitty boyfriend if you had to have a talk with me that basically went, ‘We can either have sex or break up’?”

Nick’s eyes widened. “Yeah,” started Nick as he hissed through his teeth. “I guess putting it that way  _is_  a bit of a mood killer . . . .”

Judy nodded. “It was kind of like a business discussion. Plus, it wouldn’t’ve been fair for them to keep each other on the hook like that till her dad backed off. And her dad’s a jerk, so they felt like they had to do something, quick. He said he was heartbroken, and I know he was, too, because he had—has—a real sense of fairness. And he wanted to do right by her so bad and having sex with her when she wasn’t really married to him felt wrong. It did to  _him,_ anyway. He told me he was worried about hurting her because everyone was gonna kinda look down on them.”

“So, he wasn’t really worried about having sex with her out of marriage?” asked Nick.

“No, that wasn’t what bugged him. He doesn’t really give a crap about any of that stuff. He just wants to make sure that he does right by others—and he wanted to do right by  _her_.”

“Oh, I think I get it. Was it that he didn’t want anyone to think she was loose?”

“Yeah. He wouldn’t have cared so much about those rules or whatever; it was mostly that he didn’t want to do anything that would reflect badly on  _her_. Basically, they had to decide to ruin each other’s reputations. And he knew that she was gonna take the brunt of it. Yeah, they were sure they wanted to be in a marriage and the only way to do that in an unbreakable way was to . . . .”

“Rock the truck?” said Nick again, now chuckling at her discomfort.

“Yeah . . . . But you see, that was it: They had to go around and do things a sneaky way because of her dad. They only did it the one time, he told me. And then they found out two weeks later she was gonna have his litter. The day afterward—after they had sex—everyone in town knew about it because they didn’t come home till the next morning, and he had to hold her paw while they gave her and him dirty looks.”

“Assholes . . .” muttered Nick.

“Yeah, they were. Keep in mind that there was a song kinda like that that played once on the radio but they had to take it off after public outcry.”

“You’re kidding!” laughed Nick. “What was the song about?”

Judy chuckled slightly. “It was a song about a couple—bunnies—and they went to a drive-in theatre but fell asleep while watching a movie. When they woke up in the car, everyone was gone and the movie was over. The rest of it was about how their reputations were ruined because everyone assumed that they’d been out having sex even though they were both innocent. It was the same way for Justin and Beth because they both really meant to be married. There were so many animals who really gave them a lot of crap for it, but he stood firm because sex was a commitment to him. It was to her, too; but to everyone in town, it looked like they were just in it for a night of fun. Her dad tried to keep her close to home and threatened to kill my brother if he ever came on his land looking for her.”

“I thought you said that everyone knew the rules and that they were married in common-law?”

“They do—and they were—but you don’t know how much her dad hated him. His family and ours have had a lot of bad blood in the past—mostly over land and seeding rights. The point is that he had a grudge against our family and especially Justin because when he got old enough, he started representing mom and dad in business deals. He sure as hell wasn’t going to give away his most hardworking daughter to a  _Hopps_.”

“Then what happened?”

“Well, I told you they found out that she was pregnant two weeks later. That clinched things as far as her dad’s objections went. It went to court and he tried to sue on Beth’s behalf for child support, but the judge threw that out when he heard that Justin was offering marriage. It was a big legal thing that ended up with them married. Beth’s dad tried to keep her away from the trial so she couldn’t testify, but the judge needed to cross-examine her, and when she told the judge what’d happened and what it was that she and Justin had planned and why they’d done things the way they had, the judge granted them a marriage. He even threw in a bonus and dated the marriage from the day  _before_  they . . . rocked the truck . . . so that no one’d be able to say that they weren’t square.”

“Okay,” said Nick slowly, “and . . . so . . . you’re telling me all this because . . . ?”

“Because I wanted you to understand why I feel the way I feel sometimes about . . . sex. I really,  _really_  like having sex . . . with you, but I can’t help that . . . what I guess you’d call the prudish side of me that . . . that . . . .”

“Always has to be a goody-two-shoes?”

She nodded.

“So . . . it’s because we’re not married?”

“No,” she shook her head, “Not that so much. I just told you about Justin and what happened with him that so you could see . . . an example just how seriously mammals here take those rules about marriage, just in general. They were so big on those rules that my thirty-some-odd-year old brother got into hot water over them  _just this past year_! Younger bucks and does don’t really worry about that kind of stuff, and that’s probably good for them because that’s not a good mindset to have. So, even though I’m not following those rules with you now, the rules’re in my head. Like, I guess Justin and I are the same in that way—neither of us really care about what others think—it’s just that I can’t get what I was raised with out of my head.

“Justin couldn’t either. No one can, entirely. This doesn’t really have to do with anything anybody else thinks about me—not even Jasper’s gone so far as to say anything about the fact that I’m doing things ‘backwards.’ He might see me that way, but if he does he’s never said so. And maybe that’s because it’s what happens in Bunnyburrow nowadays. I know a lot of families have been springing up in the past five years where the wife is pregnant at the wedding. Nobody really bats an eye. But for Justin—he just got married this past year—it was a big deal because his group of friends have a different mindset.”

“And where are you?” asked Nick, his eyes probing her carefully.

“On the edge, somewhere in between—halfway between being okay with this kind of open-ended relationship and halfway not.”

“I have to ask again:  _Is it that we’re not married_?”

“ _No_ , it’s not that. Even if we  _were_  married it’d feel like I’d broken the rules, somehow. It’s just this weird feeling I have.”

“I thought you came to Zootopia to break the rules,” said Nick somewhat playfully; “And you’re still a goody-two-shoes as far as police work goes,” he added.

“I know, but . . . but this feels different.”

“Because it feels like more of a commitment?” he asked.

“Because . . . well, you know, I’m . . . ‘liberated’ in the sense that I don’t really care if two animals go out for a night of fun, I don’t judge other animal’s lives that way . . . .”

“But . . . ?”

“But I guess I didn’t really see  _myself_  that way. What other’s do is fine for them as long as they’re responsible for themselves, and it’s really none of my business. But what works for some doesn’t work for everyone. And I’m just on the edge between feeling like I did something wrong and also not really caring because we’re in love and committed and all that. It’s just hard to let go of the baggage and stop seeing this as a fling.”

“Hey,” started Nick as he gently stroked her cheek before gently letting his paw rove down her side, “you know that that’s not what this is, right? You know that . . . that I wanna marry you, right?”

“It doesn’t count if you’re not on one knee,” she joked. “But yeah, I know you’re here for me. It’s like . . . I don’t know, it’s like feeling as though there are two sides warring with each other inside me. I was told that there were only two ways—either be married and have sex or be an unmarried whore and have sex: I never really thought about there being a stable middle ground between the two.”

Nick let out a slight laugh before becoming more serious. “Seriously, though, I’m not going anywhere.”

She nodded. “I know. I think I know what it is: it’s the expectation.”

“What expectation?”

“Well, I mean, you’re raised with this idea of not having sex as kind of a general rule, and then all of a sudden you have to throw that old rulebook out the window when you get married or into any kind of relationship. It’s a hard thing to do when the two choices you’re given as a female are to be a whore or the Virgin Mary. I had to learn to meet in the middle about those things, but you can get why . . . I might be feeling a bit conflicted, right?”

“So it has nothing to do with the fact that we’re not married and everything to do with the fact that . . . that you were told not to have sex?”

“Yeah, I mean, we were really all told that, and it was just kinda drilled into us. Then all of a sudden, I’m in a relationship and all of a sudden I had this switch flipped inside me that needs sex. Do you see how that’s a weird mental place for me? It’s just such a stark contrast. Nick, I lost my virginity to you two nights ago, and now this is the third time I’ve had sex with you in as many days—fewer, actually—and I’m probably going to be needing it every night. Compare that to the first time we did  _anything_  sexual: it was over a week before I let us do it again. I get that it’s natural, but I just can’t help being self-conscious about it.”

Nick nodded. “I hope you never felt like I pressured you for something.”

“No! I mean, yeah, you asked, but . . . but you always let me lead, that was the thing. You never pushed after asking, and asking isn’t the same as pushing. And let’s remember that  _I_  asked  _you_  for sex.”

Nick nodded.

“I never had a chance to think about it,” she said, “but I guess I thought that sex was ‘The Mystery of Life,’ and I thought that I was gonna become a different bunny afterward—that I was gonna be . . . I dunno, changed afterwards, I guess. I thought I was gonna be a whore, afterward. Or I used to think that before I met  _you_. But now, it’s not different. I was a bunny cop, before. And now all I am is a bunny cop that’s had sex.”

“You’re more than that,” said Nick softly.

“Hmm. What else am I?” she asked as she snuggled into his fur.

“The love of my life.”

“Nick?” she said softly after a moment, her voice breaking slightly.

“Hmm?” he looked down.

“I love you, too.”

He drew her head up and kissed her softly. He huddled her close to him till they were able to separate some twenty minutes later.

Quietly, they arose from the bed. He helped her off and held her paw. He went to the closet and reached for a towel, folding it over his arm, before walking with her to the bathroom to take a shower.

-.-.-.-

Wilde listened as he heard the bathroom door close, the sound amplified by the echoy vent.

A million thoughts were buzzing in his skull as he considered the way the two had spoken with each other, and he was reminded of his younger self with  _his_  mate.

He wasn’t sure what to make of Judy when compared to Hopps. They were two different bunnies. Sure, Hopps was standoffish and rude, but Judy had opened up a whole other side to her. Judy was fragile and practically a love sponge. She was strong in the way she carried herself and seemed unwilling to let anyone see that they’d gotten to her. A mantra he himself had been trying to follow for some time and which his twin had reiterated to him not too long ago.

In this small conversation, he understood and felt that she struggled deeply with the concept of right and wrong, that she had had to throw away those concepts handed down to her in her childhood in order to create a new paradigm that fit her new situation—being mated to a fox.

It might be that for his counterpart, she’d needed to cast off her original understanding of good and bad in order to create her own frame of reference. For such a long time, it seemed that she’d been living in a world where good was bad and bad was good.

He pondered these things as he went to go find Honey.

-.-.-.-

_5:23 PM_

Honey was worn as thin as a rag. The more information she received, the more her plans and counter plans had to be honed. From the onset, she knew that the monorail was going to be the only viable method of transporting them all to the edge of the city. She hoped to get them at least to the edge of the waters on the shore opposite Zootopia. She had managed to coordinate with Jack who was able to send out several boat skippers to meet them there at some abandoned loading docks about a half a mile away from where the tube would let them off.

The 375 mile an hour monorail could travel the 211 miles in about thirty-four minutes. The mice whom she contacted within the city were sending her messages that seemed to convey a sense of urgency that she hadn’t sensed when she’d first spoken with them. That last message she received set her teeth on edge with worry: She’d been texted a message saying that Little Rodentia was slowly moving to the secret tunnels they’d built below the city. She had asked several times for details as to why, but all she ever got from them were odd rumblings. It seemed as though to all of them there were a sense of danger in the air, and whether  _all_  the mice supported Honey and her counter-revolutionary efforts or not, it seemed they sensed that they were all in danger.

Rumour seemed to have it that City Hall had discovered some sign their efforts. Pieces were being moved around that seemed to suggest that something sinister was afoot. They had managed to gather all the dead drops without raising  _too_  much suspicion. Now Honey knew that they were on their way to the Docks in the Canal District, and that’s where she planned to meet them.

The next most difficult thing was getting in touch with all the Happy Town guards within range and tell them to meet her at the Burrow—again, warning them that Hopps was on their side as a defector—it was a quicker explanation than the one they actually deserved. They’d all arrived—all . . . twelve. And really, that was all she needed. She’d shared only the most pertinent details of the mission, reserving the hows and whys until she knew for certain whether everyone was onboard with going on the mission. Security had to be tight, she reasoned, and she hadn’t come this far only to get caught now. She had briefly toyed with the idea of enlisting some of the many civilians within the Hopps house, only to be dissuaded from that idea when she considered the stealth needed for success.

She had coordinated all of this with Jack and the boat pilots; now, the only thing that remained was to get aboard the monorail. The mode of transport was ideal—and having only twelve of the guard with her, plus two Nicks and two Judys, made up a rather inconspicuous group. They looked a motley crew, and the Happy Town guards seemed to be particularly mixed between foxes, wolves and fossas. Even a tiger and two racoons stood among them—no one would suspect, especially here, that they’d have anything to do with one another. She’d put them all to work immediately preparing for the worst. The only weapons the guards had on hand were the dart guns they’d taken with them when they fled. The circumstances might require something deadlier, so she put them to work making throwable pipe bombs from common materials commandeered from Mr. and Mrs. Hopps.

At last when they’d finished, and when Honey had finished the last of her coordinating efforts, she called a meeting and gathered all of them together in the private room Mrs. Hopps had shown her only just that morning and told them her plan.

Honey paced around the room in front of a small table as she looked at the males and females that made up their small force. At last, she let out a heavy sigh. “We have one shot,” she said, “and this plan is gonna take cunning and daring from all of you, so before I tell you what it is, are you in or out?”

Wilde just looked on along with the other Happy Towners in silence, no one really ready to commit; no one really knowing what it was she was asking for.

“Well, we need to know what we’re getting ourselves into,” said one of the guards.

“I need to know where you stand, first,” she replied gravely. “I don’t want anybody here to hear the plan and decide they want out. We need to stem leaks as best we can and I can’t afford to let you i-”

“She’s gonna hijack the monorail,” said Nick yawning.

Honey pounded the table in front of her and looked down at it, hard; and if she could have, Nick was sure she’d’ve burnt a hole through it.

Judy flashed him an angry look and pinched his arm. He stifled his amusement as he watched Honey focus her eyes in front of her.

“What did the table do?” asked Nick.

“Nothing! What makes you think I’m mad at the table?!” shouted Honey.

“Sorry!” said Nick, backing off, his voice humble and conciliatory. “It just looked like you were mad at the table.”

Honey closed her eyes and took a deep breath. “Is there some kind of sick pleasure you get out of recreationally pissing me off?”

Nick nodded solemnly. “All the time.” Nick smiled at the glowering badger.

“You know, it’s not all that smart to piss me off!” she shouted in a huff.

She sighed and looked around her at the team. “Well,” started Honey, “now you all  _have_  to be in. Thank Nick here!” she said with no small amount of anger.

“Sorry!” said Nick to the crowd. “Now, I know that it sucks that we all have to work together as a team in order to rescue helpless animals, but Honey says we have to!”

“Would you shut the fuck up? This is  _real_!” said Hopps as she walked up to Nick.

“Of course it’s real. But hey, let me show you something real quick,” he started before hopping up on the table.

“How many of you,” he started, “by a show of paws are in favour of hijacking the monorail to get to Happy Town and rescue our fellow mammals in danger?”

To a body, they all raised their paws.

“And how many more of you would have felt better about joining up if you’d known what you were getting into?”

Again, they all raised their paws.

“And one more thing,” he started as he noticed Honey’s blood boiling, “How many of you are willing to do whatever it take to make Zootopia the city it should have been from the beginning? How many of you are in this to take back the city from murderers and corrupt officials? How many of you are willing to put yourselves at risk if all you ever end up doing is brightening your own small corner of the world?”

Again, they all raised their paws, some wolves hooting and howling with approval.

He turned around and looked down at Honey who was looking out at the crowd of approving faces.

“See?” said Nick as he looked down at her.

Honey jerked her face away, the surprise in her eyes at the galvanisation of the crowd washing away and turning into stern disapproval as she looked at the fox.

“See what?” she asked through her teeth.

He crouched down before her. “That it’s better to trust your soldiers than withhold information from them. We’re all in this to make the world the best place we can for everyone. We’re all in this and ready to follow you. Don’t hide things from us—you wanted teamwork? This is what teamwork looks like. You want us all to trust each other? This is what that looks like. But—and I know this from what happened in our Zootopia—if animals don’t see trust in their authority figures, there’re not gonna feel it among themselves. Animals are looking to you, and they’re gonna follow your example.”

“We need to have security!” hissed the badger. “You can’t tell me that that concern isn’t justified!”

“It is. But right now, we’re broken. Look at us! Wilde and Hopps are barely talking, the Hopps family is  _barely_  talking to any of the preds and  _none_  of them are here right now and willing to help us-”

“They aren’t traine-”

“-It  _doesn’t matter_! I wasn’t trained when I helped Judy solve the missing mammals case, but I did it because I connected with her. I saw her looking all sad with the same look that I had when I was kicked out of the Junior Rangers club. She wanted a pack. She and I . . . we ended up forming our  _own_  pack. The point is, when animals see others in need, our instinct is to help. If we feel a connection. Right now, nobody’s feeling a connection to anyone else, and it all comes down to trust. The Hoppses don’t trust us; not all of us, anyway. Why did you and the other preds in the city have to wear collars?  _Trust!_  They didn’t  _trust_  preds. That’s all this comes down to! We need to be able to trust each other, and a long way toward that is for you to trust  _us_! Yeah, trust puts you in a vulnerable position, but we  _have_  to do it if you want to get anywhere.”

Honey raised her eyebrows in surprise and nodded appreciatively though somewhat guardedly. She looked around the room and thought for a moment.

“I need to talk to the two of you alone for a moment,” she said to Nick. “Would you all wait for me outside in the common room?” she said to the room. “Judy needs to go over the rest of the plans with you,” she said, referring to Hopps.

The bunny looked up and raised an eyebrow.

“Are you sure?” she asked, giving a look to both Nick and Judy as she stepped forward slightly. The members of the guard were already talking amongst themselves as they shuffled out of the room.

Honey nodded reassuringly. “I need to talk to Red and Carrots alone.”

“Alright,” said Hopps as she backed away, the click of the door closing behind her almost seemed to echo in the now mostly-empty room.

“What’s going on?” asked Judy as she stepped forward to see what the matter was, standing next to Nick.

Honey thought for a moment about what to say. Not being much for preambles, she decided to dive right in.

“Nick told me that you were trustworthy.”

Judy raised an eyebrow. “I know; we  _both_  told you that.”

“No, not  _him_ ,” said Honey, gesturing to the fox before her. “The  _real_  Nick.”

“I take offence to that; I  _am_  the real Nick!”

“Not here you aren’t,” replied Honey.

Nick was about to speak before Honey cut him off.

“Listen, I’m not trying to start an argument, I’m just trying to let you know that I’m really trying to vet you guys; you were really close to being on my okay to tag along list before I saw something pretty disturbing that had me reconsidering my opinions. You have to understand that I have to be on guard at every moment. I cannot afford to have any mess-ups on my watch—especially when it comes to the team waiting out in the common room. Now, you may have noticed the rest of the gang aren’t coming with us— _none_  of them are trained in the art of policing or self-defence of any kind which is why they’re not coming with us. The only reason Nick—the  _real_  Nick—” she stressed, “is coming with us is because he’s the closest thing we have to a doctor I trust on the team.”

“What’re you really asking?” Nick questioned.

“A couple of things—First, I need to know if you’re  _really_  cops from another dimension. If you’ve had the training and been through the rigour of training.”

“Yeah, we have,” said Judy.

“Are you sure?” asked Honey. “If you’re lying,  _now’s_  the time to come out with it. For both your safety and the safety of the team,  _Are you trained?_ ” she stressed.

Nick knit his brow and Judy nodded emphatically.

“Yes, I’m trained!” exclaimed Judy. “We  _both_  are!”

“Right,” said Honey as she turned away and started walking back from them.

Nick and Judy watched her retreat for a moment before Honey slowly turned back to face them.

“In this other universe, right?” asked Honey. She’d lowered her tone, and there was a slight edge to it.

Both of them nodded.

Honey bobbed her head a moment and looked away as though trying to figure something.

“How did you get here?” she asked at length.

“Uh . . .” stammered Judy as she looked at Nick, the unexpected question catching her off guard.

“We don’t know,” said Nick.

Honey searched their faces. “Is there anybody who could have come through with you? An accomplice?”

“Accomplice?” asked Nick, flatly. “What?”

Judy shook her head. “I can’t think of anybody else who would have!” said Judy. “I mean, Nick and I just fell asleep together and woke up here.”

“I find that hard to believe.”

“ _All_  of this is hard to believe!” said Nick.

“Yeah,” said Honey, “but some things are more probable than most. It just doesn’t seem likely that you’d’ve been able to sleep through shattering into another universe!”

“You’d be surprised what she could sleep through,” said Nick. “Or me, for that matter.”

“But I remember now!” said Judy as she looked up at Nick.

Nick looked back and raised an eyebrow in questioningly.

She only seemed to get more excited. “I heard a loud bang right before I woke up in the car!”

Nick seemed genuinely surprised. “Do you remember anything else?” he asked.

She shook her head no.

Honey looked between them. The fact that someone seemed to be looking for Nick and Judy would seem to settle the matter. But then again, these two were doubles. Who is to say that that creature was even looking for  _this particular_  Nick and Judy, she wondered. On the other hand, the appearance of  _another_  mysterious creature—this one capable of disappearing—on top of The Human seemed too coincidental. The confluence of strange stories and odd happenings seemed to be increasing, and this Nick and Judy had to be a part of that somehow.

This Judy before her was an idealistic rabbit bent on always doing the right thing. She was the same as her own Judy before the world had gotten to her.  _All_  of it seemed to hinge on their respective Zootopias—how it had treated each of them respectively. No matter how she sliced it, the two doppelgängers before her were being openly honest about their situation.

While this satisfied the side of her that needed to know whether she could trust Red and Carrots, it had the drawback of getting rid of any leads she might have had with regards to the mysterious creature hunting them. Which reminded her to tell them about the creature hunting them.

“Alright,” she started slowly, letting out a sigh. She fisted her paws on her hips, drawing herself up somewhat, and spoke. “Alright, I trust you,” she said firmly. “For now.” That was less firm. “Since I’m extending myself and ‘making myself vulnerable’ to potential backstabbing from you, I guess I better let you in on some information.”

“What’s going on?” asked Nick.

Turning back to the table, Honey picked up her Ibex-pad and flipped to the video Jack had sent her.

“Now,” said Honey slowly as she walked over to them, “Hold onto yourselves . . . .”

She made her way toward them and looked down to find the file. She clicked it just as she reached them, and held it up to them as though holding a mirror. She watched their faces as their eyes widened at the scene playing out before them. Their jaws fell open at the mention of their names.

It confirmed to Honey that she could, indeed, trust them: It was true surprise she’d seen on their faces and true horror at watching the officer die. The eerie look the creature gave the camera was particularly chilling.

They both looked from the screen to the badger as she spoke.

“Can you see my concern?”

Their dumb nods were all she needed to see.

-.-.-.-

Hopps paced back and forth as she and the rest of the group waited for Honey and the duplicates of her and Nick to emerge from the room.

She had explained the plan in as much detail as she could. If anyone asked, they would say that they were travelling to do business in the city and planned to stay overnight. The key to the success of their ruse would be “dressing rich”—or at least, looking as well off as they could, under the circumstances. As for Nick and Red, she was going to have the exquisite pleasure of introducing them to the sheep disguises they were going to have to wear for the mission to avoid detection. At best, they’d look like adolescent rams, but it was still better than looking like themselves. The more prey animals mixed in among them, the better it looked for them as a group and diffused doubt somewhat as the motive of the preds. Why would these prey be sitting with these preds unless they were “good ones.”

Between the Happy Towners who  _had_  arrived at the Burrow, many of the twelve had been able to piece together a purely cosmetic costume. They all looked well enough to pass for upper middle class. Their bags were packed with the easily constructed pipe bombs in case they ran into trouble.

Hopps was just about to check in on Honey and the rest of the group when the door popped open.

A rather shaken-looking Nick and Judy walked out of the room along with a rather grim-looking Honey.

She caught the rabbit’s eye and nodded in affirmation.

The trio stepped into the centre of the common room. Honey looked around as the dozen members of the guard and Wilde stood up from their places.

“Okay,” breathed Honey, “let’s move.”

As they headed down the hall, a thought occurred to Honey. She hung back until Wilde caught up to her.

“Hey, there’s something pretty important! I just realised, and you’re the only one who doesn’t know: It looks like there’s someone in the city trying to kill you, so watch out if you leave the boats.”

His resounding “What?!” echoed throughout the hall as the others made their way up the stairs.

-.-.-.-

_5:37 PM_

The yak made his way down the pale halls of the prison to The Human’s office. He stopped at the door as he heard voices speaking within. Swinton had told him to have the orders looked over and approved by The Human, and the yak was nearly wetting himself in terror. Whatever was going on, he didn’t like it. He’d briefly looked at the papers and found himself in a state of genuine alarm as he read the order for the total destruction of Little Rodentia.

He hummed to himself as he reached the double doors and waited outside, focusing his ears on the conversation. He heard The Human speak. He moved closer, noticing the door was slightly ajar. Peaking inside, he saw the odd creation seemingly speaking to a mirror . . .

“You needn’t worry about it, _Ellra_. Things seem to be going according to plan. Denizens are properly frightened and clamouring for an answer to their problems. If Swinton does as I suggest and puts forward our solution there shouldn’t be anything to worry about.”

“You told me of a resistance from the opposition?”

“I did indeed. Ma’am, there does seem to be a rather sizable faction on the other side who seem to be seeking an easy way out, too.”

“Is it the right time to make _them_ an offer?”

“Perhaps. There are one or two on their side whom we may be able to turn, but a tad more prodding needs to be done.”

“And . . . ?”

“Ma’am?” replied The Human after a pause.

“Our friend? What of him?”

“Ah, yes. _Him_. Been causing a bit of a nuisance, but we do have a lead on how to cut his strings.”

“Do you?”

“He seems to be searching for Nick Wilde and Judy Hopps. The latter of whom was dead. Or nearly so. One of ours seems to have heard rumour of the opposite. But no one in Bunnyburrow seems to be talking—the whole thing seems rather hush hush. As for Wilde . . . well, we thought him dead, as well.”

“Do you think it was because of him?”

“That they lived? I doubt it. He’ll be the one to kill them in the end. Just like he did the others.”

“Ah indeed . . . .”

“ _Ellra_ , that brings me to my next point: Might we not attempt something in the way of insurance?”

“Go on.”

“ _Ellra_ , it seems to me that if we did something with _her_ we might have something to hold onto in the event that things go . . . poorly.”

“Her who?”

The Human raised his eyebrows.

“Oh,” came the voice from the mirror. “ _Her_.”

“Indeed. Just in case things go badly for us here.”

“Will they?”

“Not entirely the question. Whether they go poorly or not, why not use her to our benefit?”

“Our resources have been invested in you at the moment.”

“It takes very little to trouble someone’s dream. Why not?”

“She’s already distraught.”

“Yes, but why not _break_ her? Think of it!”

“I will . . . consider you proposal. But now there’s much work to be done. All we’re looking for is an opportunity to drain the life from this place. We need a foothold, and so far you’re the only up to snuff. If we wanted to deal with her, we’d need _someone_ there too, and we’re simply shorthanded at the moment.”

At that instant, The Human turned as he heard a sound clattering at the door. He stepped out to see clearly and beheld the yak, terror written over his face.

“S-Swintone w-wanted me to . . . me to give you these, Sir.”

The Human eyed him coldly, the world around him suddenly seeming to go very dark. He motioned with his hand for the yak to stand and come toward him.

Tremblingly, the animal stood and made his way up the short steps into the main part of the office.

“What did Swinton want you to give me?” he asked.

The yak held out the papers, wincing when The Human snatched them. He read them before looking up at the animal.

“Did you read these?” asked The Human softly.

The yak nodded slowly.

“I see. And you chose to eavesdrop on my conversation, did you?”

“Sir, I-”

“Don’t lie,” the human smiled. “I know you heard us. It’s written all over your face. You have nothing to fear though,” he continued, watching as the yak glanced furtively over at the mirror.

“Sir, I . . . I think I should go.”

“Go?” laughed the human as the double doors slammed shut. “You can’t _go_. You’ll tell.”

“No! No, I won’t!”

“Liar,” smiled the human as he spoken gently.

“I’m not!”

The human sighed sadly. “I wish I could believe you. You, know, it’s sad that it had to end this way for you. Thing’s might’ve been different, and all you’d have to fear were some lousy chompers unworthy of your fear. I take it you’ve done plays about the way things were done in prehistoric times when preds used to eat you. The one thing they never convey is they fact that the likes of you were alive when they began to eat you.”

The yak trembled as he walked back, wetting himself down his pants suit as the human came closer.

“You should have known better than to listen in.”

“Wh-wha-?”

Before he could say another word, the human was right before him. The monster quickly grabbed his upper arm and wrenched it behind him as he spun the yak to face away from him as the mammal let out a shout of pain.

“I would like you to take just a moment to consider all the poor life choices you made that led up to this moment. Reflect on your life, and think about all the things you’re going to miss out on. Think of your poor mother, what she’ll do when she hears the news. What she’ll think when she sees me. Oh, think of your family! What will they do when I come for them . . . ?”

“No! P-p-plea-!”

He was cut off when The Human reached up and snapped his neck.

He let the yak fall to the floor with a thud.


	13. Of Mice and Men

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Plans go awry when the boats are late for the pick up of the Happy Towners and Nick and Judy. Dark forces conspire when something seems amiss, and the tiptoeing teams need to their best to evade armed forces throughout the city. What will happen when Judy comes face to face with an old friend? Will he help her or hinder her? Will the teams successfully navigate the city?
> 
> These questions and others will be answered within.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Special Acknowledgement: First and foremost I would like to thank Soildier for his help in preparing this chapter.
> 
> Author's Note: I hope you all had a wonderful Christmas or Hanukah! And a Happy New Year! Sorry for the belated wellwishes, I was, as you might all imagine, quite preoccupied with the festivities of the season. Also, if you had no such celebrations this year, I hope you at least managed to spend some time with family or, really, just enjoy yourselves in general.
> 
> I would like to thank all of my reviewers. I got a fair amount of questions concerning the possible relationship between Jasper and Honey which I found intersting. There were also quite a few of you who suggested that I add a horror tag which I will certainly attempt to do shortly.
> 
> Your reviews have been encouraging and helpful. I hope that I continue to enjoy your support in the future if I'm worthy of it. Thank you all so much! I hope you enjoy this chapter.
> 
> General Statement: As I stated before, I welcome any and all criticism pertaining to the story. If I miss a bit of grammar here or there let me know so I can fix it. If there's something that strikes you a mistake or an error let me know so that I can fix that, too; and yes, I do fix mistakes that are pointed out to me. Speaking from personal experience, nothing can take me out of a story more than a misspelt word or a grammatical mistake—especially if they're too common. Any other comments, questions, or concerns? Feel free to PM me.
> 
> Disclaimer: This is a work of fanfiction and has no claim whatsoever on the characters of Nick Wilde and Judy Hopps who are the sole property of The Walt Disney Company. In no way have I sought money, monetary value, nor profit of any kind for the writing of this story.
> 
>  
> 
> Just so you all know, the photo below is of Dr. Wilde. Look carefully and you can see his scars.

* * *

 

 

_The Golden Years_

_All I do these drawn-out days_  
_is sit in my kitchen at Pheasant Ridge_  
_where there are no pheasant to be seen_  
_and last time I looked, no ridge._

 _I could drive over to Quail Falls_  
_and spend the day there playing bridge,_  
_but the lack of a falls and the absence of quail_  
_would just remind me of Pheasant Ridge._

 _I know a widow at Fox Run_  
_and another with a condo at Smokey Ledge._  
_One of them smokes, and neither can run,_  
_so I’ll stick to the pledge I made to Midge._

 _Who frightened the fox and bulldozed the ledge?_  
_I ask in my kitchen at Pheasant Ridge._

_-Billy Collins_

* * *

 

Honey stood on the dilapidated dock and felt a cold numbness seep into her as she looked into the fog.

In the distance, she could make out the ledges and cliffs on which Happy Town had rested. She and the other Happy Toweners were doing the best they could to hold themselves together. They could only catch glimpses of the wreckage, but it was enough to make too real what had happened only yesterday. Up until then, the understanding that Happy Town was totally gone was a thought that existed for them only in the abstract.

She had prepared herself for the worst: She had been in war zones; she had lived her life in what seemed an apocalyptic nightmare. But nothing would ever have prepared her for seeing the places she’d known as a child changed to rubble. Nothing could steel them to see their memories razed and piled into smoky hills of trash.

When she had spoken of the levelling of Happy Town, it had been meant as a bit of evocative language with just a hint of truth to it. Now, she saw for herself the full reality of what lay ahead of them. Her words had become literally true, and now having it in front of her made her feel the full impact where before, she hadn’t let those thoughts touch her.

There was nothing. As far as she could see, anyway.

Out of the corner of her eye, she saw other Happy Towners gritting their teeth and looking just as grim as she was. She would have wept if she had felt as though she could allow herself to. Instead, she sucked in a deep breath and let it out shakily.

“Such are the fortunes of war,” she said to herself, though loudly enough so everyone could hear. Her voice trembled as she spoke, unable at that moment to fully divorce herself from what she and everyone around her was sure was likely to be a monument to horror.

It was nearly seven o’clock, and Jack’s reinforcements were late.

Not too long ago, they’d been aboard the monorail. They’d gotten off at the last station before entering the main city and walked the rest of the way to the shore and dock from whence Jack said he’d pick them up.

The chill air penetrated her winter coat. She’d donned a jacket to be on the safe side but found it wanting.

Idly, she glanced over at the wolves and couldn’t help but feel a tad jealous at the sight of their shaggy fur. She turned her gaze from them to Carrots and Red who were huddled and shivering together.

Not having lived in the unprotected environment of Happy Town, they were without any such natural protection. She noted Red had nice fur. It was the ideal spring and summer coat—but came up terribly short for fall-winter. Her own fur was short. For winter, anyway. Given that, it was  _still_  longer than Red’s

Still, she watched as he and Carrots hugged each other; and some of the others around them, she noted, gave the couple looks of disgust and turned away.

Honey bit her lower lip as she watched them. She had never seen an interspecies relationship work, but it was clear that it was working for them. She had never considered the possibility for herself before, either. Certainly, she had encountered many animals of another species whom she found attractive but would never dream of going to bed with them let alone dating or marrying them.

Those looking away from the couple seemed to be almost embarrassed for the two of them, and when it came down to it, she had to wonder why. Whose business was it if they wanted to be together? Certainly not hers. And not anyone else’s either.

She herself had been alone for a long time in that regard. Too long, by her count. Considering her past, however, she couldn’t really blame herself for not wanting another relationship—not out of bitterness or anger but out of sadness and a profound fear that she might feel that sadness again. But it wasn’t always that way. There had been happiness first. There had been elation and joy and contentment. Even family.

Thinking on these things, she looked across the water with a renewed purpose. Turning her gaze from Happy Town—she laughed to herself as she spat out the name ironically—she eyed the source of her pain: Zootopia.

At that moment, she took out her phone as anger and frustration boiled inside her. She made to send an angry text to Jack and his team asking them what the hell was holding them up when she stopped to see a slew of unread messages, having forgotten she’d set her phone to silent as a precaution and forgotten to check them in her reverie.

The messages all gave a different update of the same story—the coast guard seemed to be in full force and Jack’s boats were trying to navigate them. It was clear from the last text he sent that he and his teams were going to have to take a long way around to both pick them up and get them to where they needed to go.

The coast guard were on high alert for a reason, she reasoned, and that thought led to only more anxiety for her.

Earlier, actually getting on the monorail hadn’t been too difficult. Bunnyburrow was, at least in name, on  _their_  side of this fight. They had been given clearance to take the metro all the way to the city. It was leaving the monorail that had proven a little more daring for them. Officials at the last stop were more leery of the large group of preds. Wilde and Nick had managed through some clever manipulation to talk their way past the guards and get the rest of them past security without heavy scrutiny.

The seriousness of the consequences they had all been facing were belied by the ridiculousness of the sheep costumes that Hopps had forced both Nick and Wilde to wear which had been hastily discarded as soon as they were no longer needed.

They’d been lucky so far, Honey thought. Now if only their luck would hold.

-.-.-.-

Judy clung to Nick, watching the badger as she stood alone as the cold mist in the air wrapped around the figure, the dark and murky outlines of Zootopia and Happy Town in the distance. The bunny’s eyesight was in no way as good as that of her prey compatriots’ but she could infer enough.

“Nick,” she started softly as she shivered into him, “can you see Zootopia from here?”

She felt him nod above her.

“There aren’t many lights on. Just a few offices in some of the towers,” he replied.

All he could make out were the shadowy outlines of buildings across the water that hinted at the skyline their Zootopia had. It was nearly completely black, however. Where before the curved shapes of the skyscrapers might’ve appeared inviting—like blades of grass—in the darkness now looked like a black hand with claws reaching out of the ground.

It was nothing compared to the nightlife of their Zootopia and only confirmed what Judy had seen yesterday while driving around the city—there was no nightlife; especially not now that the preds had been driven out of the city.

She turned to Nick. “What about Happy Town?”

He shook his head. “Nothing. There’s nothing.”

She glanced at Wilde out of the corner of her eye and found him standing with some others on the shore ahead of them. He seemed to be a ways off. His fists were clenched and his ears bent back as he looked at the land on which his home had stood.

Now, it was just a grave of memories.

Judy shivered and turned back to Nick as he wrapped his tail around her.

She started suddenly and perked her ears up as a sound reached her ears.

The others gripped their packs and weapons closely as they looked around for the threat but saw and heard nothing but a faint rumble.

Judy let go of Nick and huffed as she ran up the beach and down the dock next to a surprised-looking Honey.

“Did you hear that?” she asked.

The badger looked at her askance. “Hear what?”

“Listen!” said Judy as she pointed toward Zootopia.

Judy pricked her ears forward and heard the sound five more times—one after another.

It sounded like an explosion.

Honey creased her brow in worry. She couldn’t hear anything but a faint tremor. “We need Jack  _now_. Where the fuck are the boats?!” she said aloud, speaking to no one as her frustration overwhelmed her.

She said this as she pulled out her phone and began furiously texting once again.

“Your boats are coming!” called a voice softly overhead.

Judy jumped in surprise and Honey looked up quickly to see where the voice had come from.

Hopps looked on as she came toward the dock. Honey let out a shuddering breath of relief. “It’s just a bat,” she called to the group on the shore. The mist and the dark night did a perfect job of hiding the mammal from her and she waited a moment to see if she could hear where the bat was going.

The branches of a far off tree rustled in the relative darkness, and Honey quickly ran down the dock and toward where she’d heard the mammal land.

“Identify yourself, Soldier!” she called as she reached the tree line.

“Nox Natflakka! Not a soldier, though.”

“Jack didn’t send you?”

“I’m a member of the Zootopian guard!”

“What’s your rank?”

“None,” he replied as she came up to get a good look at him.

“I haven’t heard of you!” she said as she thought back. Neither he nor any other bat had been on any roster of the Happy Town guard. She quickly reasoned, however, that since bats were an insular bunch due to their nocturnal habits they were unlikely to join in for any meetings during the day if they could avoid it.

“I can vouch for him,” said a fossa, speaking for the bat as he approached slowly from the beach. “We met just once during a meeting in the Nocturnal District.”

Honey nodded.

“You probably wouldn’t know me if you only worked in Happy Town,” the bat continued. “Bats don’t go there so I doubt you would have heard of us. It’s more of a . . . cosa nostra. No illegal connections, though.” The bat smiled.

Judy and Nick all came up to the tree and were followed by the others.

Nick felt himself still for a moment when he saw the creature—Nox was the largest bat he’d ever seen: about as tall as Judy. He was wearing only tight biking shorts but had thick fur on his torso to make up for the lack of sweater or other warm covering. Of course, his wings would permit no such clothing if he wanted to fly.

“If you’re not one of Jack’s, how do you know that his boats are coming?” asked Honey

“I’m not the only bat in the air; some of the vampires were able to echolocate them.”

“How many of there are you?”

“All of us? I haven’t taken count. We only just scrambled about half an hour ago and we’re trying to figure out what’s what. Jack needed help navigating so he asked some of the microbats to help and then said to pass on a message. One of them got a hold of me and told me to pass the message on to the angry looking badger on the shore.”

Nick let out a loud burst of laughter and doubled over as he slapped his knee several times.

Honey kept her eyes trained on the bat but felt her annoyance level rise with each slap she heard. She put her head in her paws when the laughter wouldn’t die down.

“Ah,” said Nick as he wiped away a tear, “that was a good one. I’m sorry, Honey, please go on.”

Honey closed her eyes and stared straight ahead when she opened them as she murmured under her breath. “I swear to fucking God, I will murder you one of these days.” She took another deep breath and looked back up at the bat. “Anyway . . . so you’re  _all_  up in the air now? Why?”

“We were expelled tonight.”

“What?” said Honey. “Back up and start from the beginning.”

“We’ve been kicked out.”

“Of the city?” asked Honey incredulously. “But you’re a prey animal.”

“It doesn’t matter,” he replied. “The  _vampires_  are preds along with a few others—and bats are all alike, if you believe the news. Anyway, another reason they came for us was that the nocturnal district is the only place in the city that preds might be safe. And we  _were_  hiding a lot of’em. They wanted to make sure to purge’em all, so they closed our district down.”

“Did you hear those explosions?” asked Nick. “My mate said she heard some.”

The bat looked almost fearful. “There’s something big going on in the city. Something in the middle of town. A march or something, but I don’t know where they’re going. I had to get out of there and so did the others when we found out there was a no-fly zone over the city. I have no idea how the hell they’re gonna enforce that, but right now, we’re S-O-L.”

“And the rest of your team?”

“Scattered, but the other micros with echolocation are mad at work. They’ll message me when there’s something organised.”

The bat darted his head up and pricked his ears, looking out across the water. He looked back at them.

“Your boats are here; just give it a few minutes. I gotta go back in the air.” He let go of the branch and flapped away. “I’m sure you guys’ll be fine!” he shouted over his shoulder. “Just don’t fuck up!”

He disappeared into the mist in the fog seconds later.

Honey and the rest of the group hustled to the shore just as they heard the lapping of water. Minutes later, in the dim light of the foggy moon, they saw the boat appear out of the darkness and gently manoeuvre itself to the dock.

The effect was eerie since not a light was on aboard the ship. It was a wonder they were able to navigate, but then Honey supposed that they must have been using sonar along with bats in the air to detect the presence of other vessels in the water.

Quickly, Honey took the lead and let her group down to the edge of the dock where a gangplank had been lowered. She went aboard quickly followed by the others. They were swiftly led to the bridge by a weary-looking tiger who simply said, “Follow me.”

Jack looked up from a table with a map of Zootopia as they entered.

“Honey,” he nodded by way of greeting. He was curt, and Honey could sense that his stern demeanour was more than his mind being distracted. The world was weighing on him.

“Jack,” she greeted back. “What’s happened?” she asked, forgetting pleasantries and getting right to business. “You were late, Carrots here heard explosions—so did Judy—and a bat just told us that there was movement in the middle of the city.”

“We’re not sure,” he replied. “The bats’ve been telling us that there’s a lot that’s changing in the city. It’s like they’re setting up for something and we don’t know what.”

The tiger went over to the helmsman and whispered in his ear. The helmsman nodded and turned the boat, beginning to drive it forward.

“Do you have a strategy?” she asked.

“Too much is up in the air. All we can do at the moment is rendezvous at the meeting point we set up. I don’t know what’s going on, but we lost all communication with our contacts in Little Rodentia about fifteen minutes ago. Can you check the log?” he asked a bobcat standing next to him.

The feline nodded and opened the logbook while Jack went on.

“I’ve got three boats in the water—they’re not too far from us. We’re gonna see if we can get together first before sailing up the coast to the canal district.”

“Did Stuart say where they were on that?” asked Honey.

Jack shook his head. “Not really. They were nearly done with the dead drops, though, when we lost contact.”

“Twelve minutes ago,” said the bobcat as he looked up from the ship’s log.

“We lost contact twelve minutes ago,” Jack nodded.

Honey hummed to herself and looked puzzled.

“We have bats in the air making contact with a micro bat we have aboard. We can’t use sonar or radio transmission—had to switch it off when the bats told us it was messing with’em. Even have to have our lights off.” Jack grit his teeth for a moment before continuing. “I don’t know exactly what’s happening, but I have a feeling it’s something terrible. What blows is that the only thing we can do now is wait.”

He stepped away for a moment before turning back. “Honey, I’m gonna need you to come with me so that you know at least what the gist of our plans are.”

She nodded and followed him as he continued speaking. “There are other boats in the water, and we’re coordinating with them . . . .”

His voice faded into a series of mumbles as Nick and the other Happy Towners looked on.

The bobcat walked up to them. “This way,” the feline gestured.

“So where’s Honey and the Honey-bun going?” asked Nick.

“She needs to be briefed on the situation,” the ensign replied. “Like he said five seconds ago.”

“Why not tell us all together?” asked Hopps feeling a little put out that this was one of the times Honey planned without her.

“Some of the information might sound better coming from someone other than a bunny.”

Hopps opened her mouth. “Wha-?”

“A bunch of preds might not take so kindly to the idea that a prey is telling them what to do.”

Nick and Wilde nodded understandingly.

When Judy gave him a sidelong look he leant over. “If you were oppressed every day of your life and had to live in a discriminatory society, it might not work to have a representative of that discrimination right fucking there giving you orders again.”

“Especially when just last night they launched an offensive and destroyed your city,” Wilde added.

“You used to giving orders?” asked one of the wolves playfully as he looked down at Judy.

“Not exactly,” said Judy carefully, “but I was one of the senior officers present when Nick came to work for us. I busted a big case-”

“With my help!” interrupted Nick.

Judy nodded. “With your help,” she said looking at Nick placating. “And it bought me a lot of credit. As the little guy, you always have to work twice as hard to prove yourself, and if you don’t do it in the first five minutes you can kiss your career goodbye.”

“Don’t I know it!” said Hopps as she walked beside her.

Judy smiled at her double before continuing. “All of this is just so different.”

Nick put his arm around her, and some of the others behind them could be heard spitting. On the ground, thankfully.

The fossa rushed up and started walking beside Nick and gave the couple a sidelong glance.

“So . . .” he started, and Nick gave him a critical look.

“Yes?” asked Nick.

“Like . . . how does it . . . ? Are you two a couple or friends or . . . ?”

Nick smirked and went back to looking straight ahead. It wasn’t the first time either he or Judy had gotten questions like this.

“Yeah, we’re a couple. We just became mates a couple of nights ago.”

The fossa grimaced but tried hard not to make a face. Nick saw that and felt himself mentally bristle, but he also saw that the fossa was genuinely curious. The mammal was doing the best he could to not make a face of disgust as they were walking, and the fact that he was going to such lengths not to make Nick and Judy feel badly went a long way with the fox in spite of the fossa’s obvious dislike.

“And . . . isn’t it unnatural?”

Nick could see Judy’s ears tinting pink. She had them flattened but he could still see. Hopps who was walking next to her, however, looked on and seemed as genuinely curious as the fossa.

Nick let out a sigh. “What’s your name?” he asked as he looked back at the fossa.

“Tobias.”

“Look Tobias, nothing my mate and I do in the privacy of our bedroom is unnatural.”

“But . . . like . . . the parts don’t fit . . . .”

Nick barked out a laugh and turned to him. “Yes, they do. And if you wanna ask me anything else, you should have the decency to ask me privately.”

Judy looked up at him gratefully as they finally came to a room at the aft section of the boat. The bobcat unlocked it and let them in.

The room was somewhat barren and dark, but there was enough natural light to see by that the preds were able to make their way around easily. Judy clung to Nick’s paw as they stepped inside, and he led her into the room where there were some chairs spaced about for them to sit in.

Some of the wolves opted to stay outside but close to the door in case they needed to evade detection quickly.

“Nick, I think I’m gonna be outside,” said Judy.

“Aren’t you cold?”

“Yeah, but I kinda just need to be someplace where there’s  _some_  light.”

“I get it,” said Nick.

“Plus, I think that weird thing wants to ask you some more about our relationship and I think I’ve about had it.”

Nick turned around to see the fossa eyeing them curiously, wearing an awkward smile and an unsure expression on his face.

Nick let out a sigh of annoyance. “Alright, but I reserve the right to knock his lights out if he turns out to be an asshole.”

Judy giggled, gave Nick a quick peck on the cheek, and walked outside. He noted how quickly Hopps seemed to follow her and he smirked to himself as he guessed he wasn’t the only one about to play a game of twenty questions.

He turned and let out a shout when he saw the fossa was standing right in front of him.

“Jesus, kid! You can’t sneak up on mammals like that!”

Tobias looked ashamed before a look of determination set in his face.

“I’m sorry, Red, but some of the guy’s’ve been talking and . . . well . . . I just guess I was confused.”

“Confused about my relationship with my mate?”

“Well, yeah. I mean . . . I mean me and some of the other guys were wondering about it. Like, how can you be mated?”

“We’re in love.”

“But you can’t have kids!”

“We’ll adopt.”

“And . . . you’re okay with . . . I mean can you . . . like, I know you said that your parts fit but, I mean, you’re a fox . . . .”

Nick nodded.

“And a part of the canine family . . . .”

Nick nodded again.

“So like . . . can you knot? I mean . . . sorry if that’s way too personal but I-”

“Can I not what?” asked Nick curiously.

“No,” said the fossa, now looking quite flustered, and Nick noticed that the wolves were looking over at their conversation now, too. “I mean,” continued Tobias, “can you  _knot_. Like does it  _fit_?”

A bell went off in Nick’s head. He wasn’t adverse to personal questions but there were some things that went too far!

“I don’t think that that’s  _any_  of your business!” said Nick.

“No! Wait!” he said pleadingly and held up his paws, “ _You_  were the ones who said you were mates and that means . . . that means . . . !” The fossa was blushing crimson red beneath his fur. Nick felt himself blushing as well and turned and looked at all the others staring at him.

They were looking at him so curiously. He felt totally humiliated, but their looks were filled not with vulgar looks trying to pry at the intimate details of his sex life—they seemed genuinely curious. Sex-ed was relatively simple when all you had to learn was how your own species worked but forming a romantic relationship outside your species? And such committed relationships invariably involved sex at  _some_  point. Usually, anyway.

They had all the same questions that he’d had—If they were going to form a relationship with someone of another species, how would that work? How would it be successful without children? Sex was obviously an important part of  _any_  relationship, so the natural question on everyone’s mind would be whether they were . . . compatible.

Nick let out another sigh, feeling extraordinarily uncomfortable under the scrutiny of so many eyes. “Yes,” he finally grunted out as he looked at Tobias, “the parts . . . ‘ _fit,_ ’“ he said. “They fit . . . all the way,” he got out before burying his face in his paws.

Nick knew that he and Judy were going to be trailblazers but this was ridiculous! Then again, they were the closest there could be to experts on interspecies relations, so there it was. Seeing the fox and the bunny together had peaked many members’ curiosities and their questions had been just as prying but hadn’t had the bravery to ask them.

Some of the more generous members of the twelve guards questioned him relentlessly about how it could possibly work with a member of another species. Wilde was conspicuously absent and was sitting over in a corner looking out a window, no doubt gazing at Happy Town as they sailed further and further into the bay.

Some of the less sympathetic members of the guard eyed Nick and his companions with a kind of disgust and quickly looked away whenever he caught them looking at him.

Some time had passed before Honey opened the door to the room followed by Hopps and Judy.

Nick noticed that Jack was nowhere to be seen. It was likely that the rabbit was doing so in order to let the preds feel more in control of the situation than they were.

That chatter throughout the room slowly died down as Honey took a central position.

“We’re coming up on the west coast of Zootopia,” she announced. “We need to be especially careful now. The bats are giving us good intel. We’re nearly to the canal district—it shouldn’t be too much longer. From what Jack’s been able to tell me, we have no way of knowing what still needs to be done and what doesn’t. We’ve had no contact from the inside. We’re just gonna have to see once we get there how much is left to be done. Hopefully  _all_  the inner city dead drops have been scrubbed and we can simply focus on extracting our operatives. Jack’s been coordinating with the other boats and the bats are committed to getting us out. With all the help they’re bringing along, we’ll be able to make short work of anything that needs to be done. I’m splitting the twelve of you,” she said looking at the guard, “into two groups. Red and Carrots are going in one group of seven and Judy’s taking the lead in a group of six.”

“We’d rather have Wilde lead us!” shouted someone from the back.

“Wilde’s not going. He’s our only medic,” replied Honey. “Your leader is Sgt. Hopps.”

“The fuck she is!” shouted another voice.

Honey growled savagely and stalked toward the wolf who’d spoken. “You wanna run that by me one more time!” she shouted. “You wanna repeat to me what you just said!”

The wolf bent his ears back. “You can’t expect us-! She’s  _Judy fucking Hopps_! We’re  _in_  this mess because of  _her_! I’d rather go in the predfucker’s group—at least we can tell  _she_  likes us!”

Honey only stared at him for a moment before bursting into laughter.

The wolf cracked a smile, but his face went dead again quickly when she suddenly stopped.

“You listen to me: I don’t have time for this macho bullshit of yours. In life or death situations we can’t be asking ourselves, ‘Who’s in charge?’ I’m putting Hopps in charge and you’re gonna like it whether you end up in her squad or not. I trust her with my life and you’d better too before we get to shore or else-”

She was cut off when the side door burst open and an out of breath bobcat leant in.

“You guys, we have a problem. A  _big_  fucking problem!” he shouted before dashing out.

Honey and the others quickly dashed out of the room and followed the ensign to the bow.

“The bats intercepted an SOS a few minutes ago. They said they heard-” The ensign cut himself off as they came and stood at the edge of the boat, against the railing. After a brief pause, he pointed when he saw something in the water, squinting.

“There!” he said. “Oh, God . . .” he trailed off.

Judy looked down but couldn’t see.

“What is it?” she asked Nick as she looked at him. In the dim light, she could make out his profile. It was grim and his teeth were set. In the distance, she could hear splashing water followed by larger splashes. Again and again, she heard them and she couldn’t make it out.

“Nick!” she insisted. She could hear something thudding against the side of the bow and got an odd sinking feeling in the pit of her stomach.

“I don’t know!” said Nick, an odd panic rising in him.

“Full stop!” shouted the ensign as he turned around to face the bridge, a look of sheer panic on his face. “Full stop!” he called again.

“Oh my God!” shouted the fossa as he looked over the bow. “They’re  _mice_!”

Quickly, Tobias as well as the others followed by Honey grabbed gear and deck chairs along with floating life preservers and carefully dropped them into the water.

Nick tore around and looked inside forecastle of what he saw now was a tour boat. He grabbed hold of a stool and some wooden chairs and quickly dragged them to the side and carefully put them into the water so as not to hurt the rodents.

Many of them he could see were unconscious and he rushed to snatch as many out of the water as he could and laying them down carefully before running back inside.

He and the others were scrambling to gather as many floating materials as they could. The louder splashes, he could see now, were bats dipping into the water to get a hold of mice and bring them aboard the boats.

As he went back in, Nick saw Judy run for a utility closet and grab several life vests before running back outside and throwing them far out into the water for those who might have been too far away.

To his relief, Nick saw several mice climb up onto the flotsam.

“How long have they been in the water?” Nick heard someone ask.

“Not long!” Wilde answered. “They can’t have been or they’d all be dead. A matter of minutes, I’d say. The shore can’t be too far off.”

“It isn’t,” Honey replied.

The voices were disjointed and scrambled as everyone aboard ran helter-skelter.

Lifelines lowered were of little use as the nearly frozen creatures were barely able to climb aboard any floating material. The two other boats beside them had gotten the message, too, and were well into trying to rescue as many as possible.

For several minutes, the company worked to bring up as many rodents as they could. The advantage of having so many bats in the air was an incredible save—there wasn’t a mouse, alive or dead, that wouldn’t be detected through sonar. As long as they were above the water.

What he could gather from the fragmented conversation was that the water breaking around the drowning creatures had initially been taken for mines of bombs until bats told them to kill the propellers to keep from hurting the creatures.

The cold waters had managed to nearly paralyse the creatures.

Honey and Jack had given orders to take out as many from the water as they could. It seemed impossible! Nearly an entire city’s worth of rodents were floating in the frigid fall-weather waters. Wilde made it clear that timing was critical. Even unconscious and dead looking mice might merely be suffering from hypothermia and be possibly revivable.

Several blankets were set up in the lounges and in areas below deck. Wilde let those still above that he was going down to oversee it, giving strict instructions to all the crew members and making sure to give the same message to several bats in the air to be passed on to the other boats.

The multitude of bats had done a labour intensive job of rescuing thousands.

Nick stayed outside, coordinating with other crewmembers as the work went on, quick to receive and slowly warm up any mouse given to him or to any other member of the team.

By and by, the bats’ drop offs were becoming less frequent, and Nick was both relieved and sickened by the potential implications of that fact.

Pretty soon, he was just standing out there alone, looking ahead and then turning to the side to regard Zootopia which now lay east of them. Off the starboard bow, the dim foggy lights of the city glimmered though only in the highest towers where mammals were staying up late, likely conducting business or finishing paperwork. The rest of it seemed to lay in complete shadow and darkness.

He took a moment for himself and breathed in and out in an attempt to centre himself but opened his eyes when he heard voices. He turned and saw Honey coming around the corner holding something in her paws.

It was a mouse.

Nick wondered for a moment what she was doing out here. Barely able to make out their voices, he was able to hear only snatches of conversation until they came nearer.

“. . . didn’t tell us what was happening! We certainly had no idea!” Honey’s voice was trembling with emotion. Nick clearly saw the tear tracks down her face.

“The leak  _has_  to be yours!  _We_  sure as hell don’t have one!”

“Vincent,” started Honey, “I don’t know what to tell you. I can see why you and the others might’ve been targeted, but why  _all_  of you? It just doesn’t make sense. It seems completely unmotivated! I know that no one on my team talked.”

“Just what are you implying?” the little mouse chattered. “That  _we_  leaked it?!”

“No!” said Honey pleadingly. “Just that maybe it wasn’t anyone’s  _fault_.”

“But it  _is_  someone’s fault: Yours! You’re the leader—everyone’s looking to you, and you’ve been masterminding this whole thing!”

“In that sense I understand-”

“Good! Because we  _all_  lost a lot tonight. Mammals are asking me what the hell happened! Why were you late?!”

“The coast guard were in the water. Jack needed to avoid them in order to pick us up.”

“Why aren’t they on our asses now, if that’s the case?!”

“The bats told us that they were all recalled.”

“Recalled? That doesn’t make sense!”

“It does. Only prey animals are on the force now. How far can you see in front of you right now?”

The mouse didn’t respond, but Nick thought he could hear the mouse say, “Mhm . . . .”

“So, what happened? How far were you able to get?” the badger asked.

Nick felt the boat tremble and heard a low humming as the boat came back to life and started along the coast of Happy Town.

Nick heard the mouse say something and then Honey’s response: “Yeah, sure. I was just trying to get away from the voices inside. Not sure if we have an empty room, though. This boat might be too small.”

After another inaudible murmur, Honey nodded, turned around, and went below deck.

Whatever was happening in Zootopia, it seemed like a purging of all dissident opinions and mammals.

Nick sighed and looked down the forecastle to see the different areas all hopping with activity. He looked over at the bridge and smiled at the helmsman through the window and waved. The helmsman waved back and nodded curtly.

Nick shivered, suddenly feeling the cold penetrate his fur. He let out a breath and watched it catch in the air before walking down the deck and into the forward lounge. He saw Judy— _his_  Judy—padding down row on row of mice, tending them and warming them slowly. She looked to the side for a moment and caught his eye. She smiled grimly and nodded him over. He smiled understandingly and went to her.

-.-.-.-

Honey sighed as she sat down on the bed of an unoccupied berth, though from what she could hear, they weren’t going to be alone for long as the other rooms were all being prepped and occupied by hundreds of rodents.

She set Vincent down on the bed next to her and watched him huddle down into the mattress and comforter, a wrap already about his shoulders.

“Where are the rest of them?” asked Honey.

The trembling mouse looked up at her. “A-at the rendezvous point. They managed to escape. They have no idea what’s happened!”

“What happened?”

“We don’t know! We were nearly done with the dead drops but I had to go back to Rodentia. When I was there, that’s when the steamrollers came for us. At first, we thought it was a fucking joke or something, but they actually started taking down buildings. The fire department sounded an alarm and the next thing I knew we all started running. Gas lines exploded! They drove us into the fucking sea! I have no idea how many were left behind or how many . . .” he stopped and started sobbing.

“Did you manage to get the word out?”

“Yeah,” he sighed. “We managed to get the word out so a lot of us were in the street already when they came for us. A lot of us were able to escape underground, thank God. Last I heard before I went into the water was that they were all at the point and waiting for you guys. I knew that we ran the risk of pissing off City Hall, but I  _never_  would have thought that they’d try to kill all of us. We got onto the beach, and the rollers and jackboots kept coming. The next thing we knew we were in the water and the rollers were right there. And the water was so cold! I have no idea how long we were floating for, but there was a fast current that swept us out. It was terrifying! We were so cold we couldn’t scream or anything! We just tried to grab onto each other. And I swore to God that I’d kill them—every last one of them!—for what they did to us!”

Vincent grit his teeth, his eyebrows knit in an angry look as he started down at the blankets, a fiery spark in his eyes.

“I have to go touch base with the others so they know what’s what. We still have to extract the rest of the team and get to whichever dead drops you guys weren’t able to get to.”

“When I was with them, we were more than halfway done.”

“Is it disposable stuff? Stuff we could do without?”

He looked up at her and cocked an eyebrow. “You said no leaks.”

“I know, but I’m looking to you. The faster we leave, the faster we can get the rest of you the medical attention you need.”

“Half of us are probably gone already.”

“Don’t talk like that! I’m sure some made it through.”

At that moment there was a knock at the door. Honey turned and saw a bunny poke her head in.

“Judy,” said Honey, “what’s up? We’re in a private-”

“I’m sorry, but we need this room.”

“Tell them to come in,” said Vincent. “They need the room more than we do.”

Honey looked at him and nodded. She held out her paws and scooped the mouse into them before carefully coming toward the door. She stopped next to Hopps. “Tell the others I’m calling a meeting in fifteen. We need to be ready and we all need to be on the same page.”

Hopps nodded and proceeded to follow Honey before briefly stopping to let one of the crewmembers know where she was going to be.

-.-.-.-

Honey walked into the meeting room to find it empty. They’d be reaching land in about five minutes, and precious time was dripping by. She thought about how in a matter of minutes they’d all have to brave the city. In a matter of minutes, the entire room would be occupied with either the half living or the dead rodents. There was no way to escape the horror. So many souls had gone into the water to die. How was she supposed to deal with that?

The only thing keeping her from breaking down at that moment was the fact that she had to be the strong one. She couldn’t allow herself to falter in front of people whom she knew were relying on her levelheadedness.

The others slowly arrove and waited as the guards and Red and Carrots made their way into the room. She quickly briefed them and let them know that most of the work had been done. She also told them all that Vincent had told her about what had happened in the city. they had to rescue the others and find out where it was that they needed to go. The hope, she explained, was that they had managed to finish all of the inner city work and that all that might remain were some USB drives in the north or along the coast that needed to be scrubbed.

They made landfall about five minutes later at the appointed spot. There they found the remaining mice unharmed. Honey and Vincent warned them of what they would see when they came aboard.

There was nothing that could be said, no consolation she could give, that would expiate the guilt everyone felt. The blame rested with her, though, and she felt in her bones the profound responsibility for what had taken place that evening. These were her troops—her friends and acquaintances—and she had let them down. She’d known what the risk could mean as far as lives lost. This was a war! But that meant nothing in the end because they had been looking to her for protection. And every time she told herself that there wasn’t anything more that she could have done under the circumstances, her gut rejected it. Had she really done  _everything_  she could have? She should have been there, like any good commander, fighting and dying alongside them, if need be.

And there were tears and weeping as she walked the decks carefully before she was finally tapped and given a message by Ensign Zach: Vincent and some of the other leaders of the rodent team were requesting a meeting with her and Jack.

She felt the pit in her stomach grow but grit her teeth and let out a shaky sigh before turning and heading to the bridge, to the captain’s berth, to figure out what the next steps were going to be.

-.-.-.-

“Alright,” started Honey, “given the information we’ve received from our operatives, we now have an idea of what it is that needs to be done.”

She stood in front of the guard in a cramped storage pantry—the only available space left.

Nick and Judy stood along with Hopps at the front of the group with the successively larger mammals behind them.

“First of all, Carrots and Red are going to be in a group with Tobias, Forester, Rover, Bauer, Arborel, and Shireson.”

Nick and Judy stood to the side along with two foxes, two racoons, the fossa, and a tiger.

“Arborel,” she said to the tiger, “You’re the team leader. Pick your second when we get to shore. Now,” she said as she turned to the others, “that means that Judy’s leading the rest of you: Groe, Canne, Elhsand, Mueller, Stark, and Hester. Judy’s team leader.”

“We should get Wilde!” said one of the wolves as he fell in line behind Judy.

“Groe!” said Honey, “You know he can’t at the moment seeing as he’s too busy trying to save lives!” she finished sharply.

“I’m telling you right now,” said one of the fossas, “it’s not right having her in charge! It doesn’t feel right! We’ve spent the last year trying to get the hell away from her-”

“Stop!” shouted Honey-

“-and now you expect us to flip a switch and just do whatever she tells us?!”

“Hester, what I need from you is to follow orders. You trust me! And you trust me to give orders! So trust me now when I  _order_  you all to do as she says. She knows the ins and outs of ZPD better than anyone-”

“And we don’t?!” said the second fossa.

One of the wolves behind the smaller mammal hushed him, but the point was well taken. In their seasoned time working for the Happy Town guard, they had managed to understand the ZPD’s inner workings rather well. Unfortunately for them, Hopps’ experience far exceeded theirs; whatever knowledge they had of the ZPD, she had double.

It was out of the question as far as Honey was concerned. Judy, her Judy,  _had_  to take the lead.

Her silence conveyed to the dissenters that she was having none of it, an entire vicious tirade spoken with a single look. Even the wolves felt themselves shrink back a bit when they saw that angry glint in her eye.

“Uh . . .” ventured a wolf, bravely daring the badger’s ire.

“Yes?” asked Honey as she hooked an eyebrow. “You have something to say, Stark?”

He gulped before going on. “Well,” he said slowly, “it’s just that . . . we’re still one person short on our team.”

Honey’s face changed from one to anger to one of thoughtfulness.

“Yes,” she said, appreciative of the fact that the wolf hadn’t tried to bog her down with more complaints, “I’ve given that some thought already. Ensign Zachariah has volunteered his assistance on that front. He’s a Bunnyburrow native so you may need to take a bit of care with him when telling him where to go.”

Honey drew out several folios from inside her jacket. “The mice were kind enough to tell us the locations which they weren’t able to reach before it came time to rendezvous. I’ve got maps marked out for all of you. Arborel, your team is taking the southern areas near the city centre. Mostly along the coast, though. Judy, your team is taking the north side. Also mostly along the coast.

“There are thirteen dead drops you have to get to. It shouldn’t take too long. We have a combined knowledge that should allow you all to finish the task safely. Remember—your team is your lifeline: whatever you do,  _do not split up_! “

She handed out the maps and they were passed around the groups. Honey led them all to the top deck where they were met by Zach who had their battle gear ready in case things went south.

The three boats were docked in an abandoned port at the northern end of the inlet. Hopps’ team were staying in the area to take care of the dead drops there while Arborel and his team were heading to the south. When the task was finished, they were to head to the shoreline to await transport by one of the three boats. Radios and cell phone usage were forbidden, and each team was given a messenger bat who was to fly and send a sonar message to his companions in the air who would deliver the message to the boats that they were ready for extraction.

Also disembarking were Jack’s forces—four groups of six, who were tasked with going into the Nocturnal District and conveying any preds still in the city to safety.

Honey stood before them on the shore and nodded to her teams, giving them a proper salute.

“You have your orders,” she said formally. “Carry them out with diligence. And God’s love be with you.”

Hopps along with Nick and Judy were the only ones who saluted back. With that, she turned and went aboard.

-.-.-.-

Hopps shifted the pack on her back as she and her team padded slowly through the residential neighbourhood. Down along the northern coastal area, the pendulous silence hung over them like a sword waiting to drop. Every sound, however minor, was enough to send them all scurrying back into the shadows. All it would take was one civilian to spy them, and they were toast.

She signalled to Groe, her second, and he approached carefully.

“There’s a dead drop right across the street,” she whispered softly as she looked down at the map. “It’s in the alley over there . . . .” She trailed off, her voice trembling as she beheld the alley across the way. There was no time to give in to her fears—she just had to do it while trying to actively forget the fact that the worst moments of her life had occurred in alleyways.

She took a deep breath as she looked up at the wolf through her night vision goggles.

“Are we ready for this?” she asked.

He nodded slowly and waved his paw signalling the others to follow behind him.

Hopps peaked out from behind the corner of the tenement building and looked carefully up and down the street.

It was dead silent.

The moon shone down through the mist and curtain of clouds, casting an eerie light on the street. It would be easy for them to be seen in the darkness, semi-illuminated by the moon—if it weren’t for the fact that they were counting on the poor night vision of those living there.

As they walked across the street, Hopps couldn’t help but feel as though she were walking in a ghost town. She could have done cartwheels in the street if she wanted and nobody would have stopped her.

They quickly moved down the alley on the other side, passing by fire escapes that hung down their ladders like cages every few feet until at last she suddenly stopped, halting the others as they came up behind her.

There, in the side of the alley, was a tiny piece of metal sticking out from the wall.

“Stark,” said Hopps whispering to the black wolf who took up the rear, “you have the equipment—you know what to do.”

The wolf nodded and crouched down close to the USB drive. He pulled out a small computer and plugged it into the wall.

Hopps sighed to herself anxiously. “One down, seven to go.”

-.-.-.-

Nick and Judy had been trekking south along the coast toward their first target. The bat perched on Judy’s shoulders kept a sharp ear out for anything or anyone approaching. There hadn’t been any close calls so far, and the police presence which seemed to be everywhere felt almost completely subdued. She stuck close to Nick, her instincts flaring up. She didn’t know what it was, but it almost felt as though they were stepping into a trap and she didn’t know why.

She adjusted her night vision goggles to relieve the pressure on her sockets. Taking a look around, she knew that no unequipped predator officers would be able to see them without gear. Even then, they’d have to be fighting their natural instincts to fall asleep. It was nearly nine, and even Judy found herself yawning before looking up to Nick and blushing slightly as she put her goggles back on.

“This way,” whispered Arborel as he gestured with his paw.

“Mammals!” squeaked the bat.

Quickly, they all ducked down amid the tall grass that sprawled out before the shoreline. The meeting of the grass and the beach marked the clear borders of Savannah Central.

Up ahead of them, across a dark street, were two officers wearing night vision goggles passing by.

Arborel gestured for them to lower themselves still further. At best, the tall grass would hide them if they sank low enough; at worst, it would look as though there were eight mammals clearly hiding while pretending to be rocks on the ground.

Waiting for the guards to turn down a street and move out of sight was painful.

As soon as they were gone, Arborel very carefully poked his head out from the grass and looked around.

“Cameron,” he said to the bat, “do you hear anything else?”

“It’s all clear as near as I can tell. Some bats are messaging me, though—there’s a heavy presence of police all around the southern edge and coast.”

“Why didn’t they tell us that before?” whispered the tiger harshly.

“This is a new development.”

“What about the northern edge? What about Hopps and her team?”

“They’ve managed pretty successfully so far. The no-fly zones are in force, though, so I haven’t heard anything up-to-date on them.”

“And the police presence there?”

“Almost non-existent. Island hopping isn’t exactly something that’s easily done.”

“Trust me, with a smaller police force to work against, I’d take island hopping in the canal district any day.”

The tiger shifted his pack and looked around again.

“Okay,” he whispered, “let’s move.”

Slowly, they all rose and carefully took stock of their surroundings. Arborel motioned with his paw. As one, they all moved across the street and into the alley between the tall buildings facing the water.

Nick looked down at his map and was befuddled by the layout—things were so different and yet so familiar. He took a careful look at the streets as they passed them and noticed familiar shops and landmarks, but all wrong.

“Toby, you have the computer?” asked the tiger as they went down another alley.

Nick looked down at the map again and saw that they were right on top of a dead drop.

The fossa nodded. “Yeah, I-”

“Hide!” squeaked the bat.

Immediately, Arborel and the others dove behind dumpsters and into darkened doorways.

Judy hid beneath a dumpster and went totally silent.

Peeking out, she saw a large water buffalo step around the corner.

 _‘Bogo!’_  she thought.

They all stood still as they listened to the clack of hooves on pavement.

It was slow and measured. He had a gun drawn. Judy had never seen a gun with bullets before, and she couldn’t be certain what he was holding in his paws, but she was far from taking any chances with it.

The bovine was clad in black gear which only made his already imposing figure look larger than it was. Grenades and heavy ammo poked out from pockets.

His night vision goggles made him look strange and alien to her. She had never seen war or combat gear such as he wore, but she saw it as plain as day. She had no idea at all how he had come by it but imagined that the police had upgraded their weapons cache since she’d last seen it.

She mentally chastised herself.

 _‘This isn’t your world anymore, Judy,’_  she thought.

He seemed to stop for a moment before cautiously coming forward. She carefully shifted her head to the side to see where the others were: Nick was crouched down in a pile of trash along with the two other foxes, the two raccoons were hidden behind a dumpster, and Arborel and Tobias were hidden in a doorway. The bat was nowhere to be seen. She could only hope that he’d found some way to blend in with the shadows which, upon thinking about it, she realised wouldn’t be all that hard for him considering the little vampire was nearly all black. Bogo’s goggles might ruin the camouflage, though.

Nick held his breath as the hoof falls came closer and closer. The foxes next to him were standing stock still. Across the alley, he could see a tiny shadow beneath the dumpster he knew had to be Judy. The two raccoons, whose names he’d forgotten, were behind another dumpster.

Nick’s heart began to beat even faster when he heard a tiny voice behind him whisper to him and the other foxes:

“Arbroel says to prepare for an ambush. Knives at the ready, do not draw until he’s in our midst: attack at once—all together.”

Arborel had merely whispered under his breath—it had been all the bat needed to hear the command.

“I know you’re down here!” called Bogo. “How many of there are you?” he called again.

Arborel took a slow and steady breath—if he had seen one of them, there was no way he was going to step into the trap. An ambush from all sides would have been perfect, though.

“Cameron,” he whispered softly from the doorway, “tell the others that I’m going to step out and draw him in.”

“I  _know_  you’re behind the dumpster!” said Bogo. “Come out at once!”

Before the tiger had a chance to think, Nick stepped out from behind the dumpster.

 _‘Shit!’_  was the collective thought that went through everyone’s minds.

“Hey, Chief! You miss me?” asked Nick as he stepped back slowly.

“Wilde! Murderer!”

Nick gulped and stood as still as he could, his eyes trained on the gun pointed right at him.

“Chief, you got it all wrong, I-”

“You’re  _dead,_  Wilde!”

“I know, so why don’t you place me under arrest a-”

“No. You die right here. Right now.”

Nick flattened his ears and felt his stomach tighten. “Uh . . . Chief . . . ?”

Nick watched Bogo holster his weapon and then nearly shat himself when the chief started running toward him full tilt. Nick immediately turned and ran screaming, stopping a short distance away. He watched as the bovine stepped into the ambush and ran toward the buffalo an instant later as all the seven in the alley descended on Bogo.

Bogo let out a grunt of frustration when he felt a pair of paws wrap themselves around his neck. He reached for his throat but not before a second pair took hold of them.

A fossa stepped out from the shadow and pulled a knife. Before the tiny creature could leap forward though, Bopo grunted and threw himself back against the alley wall crushing whoever it was who’d grabbed him. He turned to see two racoons rush him.

In an instant, Bogo had his dart gun drawn and fired two rounds which clanged as they hit against the metal trash lids the two tiny mammals were using as shields. He let out an angry shout of pain when he felt the fossa stab his leg. In a quick motion, he kicked his leg, throwing the fossa across the alley and slamming him into a wall.

He turned when he heard movement beneath one of the dumpsters but turned forward again to face the two raccoons.

“You savage fox!” shouted Bogo, “You don’t even have the guts to face me alone!” he cried as he managed to grip one of the ringtails and slam him against the wall. He dodged the other’s knife and in a swift movement snatched the trashcan lid from him and pushed him back before smashing it lengthwise across the raccoon’s muzzle.

Bogo let the raccoons drop and turned to face Nick.

“I’ve been waiting for this,” he murmured as he stalked forward.

Nick looked completely stunned.

Bogo smiled. “I’m going to crush you with my own paws.”

The water buffalo suddenly stopped when he felt a set of razor sharp claws around his throat.

“Not if I crush you first,” came a deep voice from behind him.

Bogo immediately stiffened and looked down at the set of claws around his neck.

“I should have known!” said Bogo as he stiffened.

“One wrong move and your mincemeat, you understand me?” said Arborel.

The others slowly rose up behind him, moaning and groaning slightly.

“Was this your plan all along, Wilde?” asked Bogo. “To kill me in cold blood?”

“Well,” started Nick, “it wasn’t really the plan, we were just trying to do our job.”

“Jesus,” said one of the foxes as he came up to the tiger, “you sure as hell took your time trying to save our asses. Fuck, I wouldn’t have bothered if I’d known you could just stop him with that!”

“For now,” said Bogo arrogantly before stiffening against the claws that tightened around his jugular.

“It’s that fucking fox,” said the tiger referring to Nick. “He messed with my fucking plan. Took me a second to regroup. Besides, you got him nice and distracted for me,” he said to the others.

“Can we just dart him a few times and leave?” asked Judy as she crawled out from under the dumpster.

Bogo gasped and sucked in a deep breath.

“Sgt. Hopps?” he asked carefully as he tried to turn around and see her.

Judy raised an eyebrow and manoeuvred to stand in front of the chief.

“Oh my God . . .” he trailed as he saw her. “How are you still alive? Wilde  _killed_  you!”

“Oh!” started Judy as she looked up at the chief. “No, he didn’t. And yes, I’m still alive.”

“But they told me-”

“Who told you?” she asked.

“S-Swinton. And Bellwether. They both told me-”

“But I’m alive. Wilde didn’t kill me. It was actually . . . uh . . . Coal who tried to kill me,” she said, recalling what Hopps had said about who’d darted her.

“C-Coal? No! They’re making you say that! Sergeant, I can get you out of this!”

Judy shook her head.

“Coal darted me and threw me off the side of the cliff while I was paralysed. Dr. Wilde saved my life. It was Bellwether and two others who set off the bombs at Wilde times that turned predators into savages. That’s what was doing it. Night howlers, Chief. That’s what causes the change. You were looking at the wrong place— _we_  were looking in the wrong place.”

“That can’t be,” he stated simply.

“But I’m alive. Doesn’t that prove something?”

“It proves that a mistake was made! We didn’t look for you hard enough! That you were kidnapped!”

“It proves that they were trying to cover for trying to kill me.”

“Why are you working with  _them_?” he spat. “Is it because they’re making you?”

“No!” said Judy. “No, they . . . they need help. They’re being murdered and framed for crimes they didn’t commit. Bogo, you’re the chief! You must know about all of the awful things that the ZPD is doing!”

“Keeping the peace! Preserving law and order!”

“Murdering innocent preds!” snarled the tiger.

“Wh-what?!” bellowed Bogo. He meant to shove away when he felt the tiger’s claws press more tightly into his flesh.

“Do it!” snarled the tiger, “I fuckin’ dare ya!”

“Hopps, I don’t know what these preds’ve told you, but there are no murders going on in the ZPD! I’ve heard their propaganda, too!” said Bogo.

“Don’t lie!” shouted one of the foxes. “You had my brother killed in Searton!”

“What the hell is this?!” shouted Bogo, appearing genuinely panicked and confused. “Nothing of the sort has  _ever_  happened at Searton or in any other place run by or affiliated with the ZPD!” he shouted.

“It was her job to oversee it!” said the fossa, carefully rubbing the back of his head.

Bogo looked around before looking at Judy. “You . . . you did what?” he asked.

Judy winced slightly as an idea began to form in her mind: Her doppelgänger had clearly indicated that there were factions in the ZPD. That there was an in-group and an out group as far as much of the malpractice on the force went, which also had to mean that there were members of the force who were largely ignorant of the horrors being perpetrated. Bogo, she recalled from only yesterday morning, had apparently appointed Yaguarete, a jaguar, as his deputy. It was certainly, then, at least  _plausible_ , she reasoned, that he was unaware of some of the more damning activities which the ZPD had taken on—it may be that Swinton and others had seen him as weak and not with the program.

He wasn’t as easily disposable because of his high visibility as an upstanding member of the prey community. He got results and was a bastion of morality. Both of these things meant that he was untouchable unless City Hall simply decided to switch over to having an all out police state. At the moment, it was a police state only pretending to be a democracy.

Judy took a deep breath and tried to remember all the things that Hopps had told her.

“Not too long ago,” she began, “I was approached by Swinton and Bellwether to oversee certain activities at Searton and at the ZPD in general. You are aware of the fact that we do declawings?”

“Yes,” he muttered, as though unable to stomach the fact.

“We’ve been doing them without anaesthesia.”

It was hard to read his reaction through the goggles he wore, but she noticed a slight tension in his shoulders.

“Chief,” she continued, “what you may not have been aware of is that under the direction of both Mayor Swinton and former-mayor Bellwether, I and others have been overseeing the torture and executions of chompers within the city.”

Bogo stood there for a moment. “ _You_  Hopps?”

“I . . . I was part of an underground organisation that worked to get those preds sentenced to death out of the ZPD and to safety somewhere outside the city. It’s been policy for at least the past year.”

“Your trial . . . .”

“It was a setup, Chief. Please, you have to believe me! Swinton and the others have been working to take over the city completely. I don’t know why, but I know that it’s happening. There’s a divide on the force, Chief. I  _know_  you must’ve noticed  _something_! Think about it: Think about how many of your officers don’t actually report to you but directly to Swinton! Think about the doctor who does the declawing! Have you ever seen a medical report of his?”

When Bogo remained silent, she continued.

“You know that those reports came directly to me, right? That I had to write incident reports, right? And that I was asked to forward them to Swinton? Think about Coal! Think about it, Chief! Does he report to you or to Swinton?”

“You’re not honestly trying to suggest that he was innocent in all this?” growled Arborel referring to Bogo.

“How often did you hear of Bogo’s involvement?” asked Judy.

Arborel and the other seemed to be at a loss.

“Bogo keeps his nose to the ground. Yaguarete is his deputy. He probably picked him himself. Why would Swinton think he was on their side?” she asked.

“Yaguarete’s a friend,” said Bogo.

“If that were public knowledge, there’s no way that Swinton would trust him with stuff like this,” said Judy. “Not high-level stuff. That’s why I was their go-between—part of the reason, anyway. They knew I had the Chief’s ear.”

“Sergeant Hopps,” started Bogo, “it’s impossible tha-”

“It’s not impossible! This city has a dark underbelly that it doesn’t let normal mammals see. They can’t know or they would never go along with it! Or they’re all monsters which I  _refuse_  to believe!”

“All an animal would notice is that at one point a pred lived next door to you and then he didn’t. Nobody cares about a nine o’clock curfew because everybody’s indoors by eight or nine anyway,” said Rover, one of the foxes.

“Did you know about the closing of the Nocturnal District?” asked Judy. “Did you know about the no-fly zone over the city? Or that the bats’ve been driven out? That Little Rodentia was flattened and that they were driven out into the sea—every shrew, every mouse, every rat?”

“Wh-what?!” gasped Bogo. “I was assigned here to oversee-”

“Busy work,” concluded Nick. “They were gonna do it and then fill you in about it later.”

“But that’s impossible to cover up!” bellowed Bogo as he lurched against Arborel’s claws. “It’d be news the next morning! Everyone would know!”

“Which means one of two things:” started Nick, “Either they’re going to blame what happens tonight on domestic terrorism, or . . .” he trailed off.

For several moments he held his breath, keeping them in suspense.

“Oh, for fuck’s sake, would you just  _say it_!” exclaimed Tobias.

“Or, they’re ready to make their big move,” Nick finished.

“Big move?” asked Rover.

“For power,” Nick clarified. “You mark my words, Chief: Tomorrow, you’re in for a hell of a lot of changes.”

Bogo took a deep breath.

After a moment of silence, Forester, one of the raccoons, chimed in. “So what’re we supposed to do with him, Boss?” he asked as he looked up at the tiger.

Arborel seemed at loss for a moment before Bogo chimed in. “I can give the schedules and place where guards are posted and where they’ll be.”

“You’re helping us?” asked Judy as she raised an eyebrow.

“He doesn’t even know what his own force is up to!” retuned Shireson. “Even if we believed him— _which I don’t!_ —how do we know his information is completely trustworthy?”

“It’s good for the guard posts around the city. If what you say is true,” said Bogo, “it might not be the most complete information, but it’s better than what you have!”

“How do we know you’re not just trying to save your life?” asked Arborel. “I’m with Shireson—How do we know we can trust you?”

“I wouldn’t do anything to hurt one of my finest officers—Judy, we’ve worked together for years: Have I ever done anything that wasn’t by the book?”

“What about Weasleton. He was beaten within an inch of his life,” she replied.

“That wasn’t at  _my_  command! I found out about it afterward. I suspended Rhinowitz for it! Don’t you remember?”

Judy gulped. She’d only heard about the Weasleton incident earlier at the town hall meeting. What she didn’t have were all the details.

“Wait a minute,” started Bogo, “i- . . . is Rhinowitz one of  _them_?”

Judy looked on and was about to answer when Bogo spoke again.

“Who else is in on it?  _Names_!” he bellowed.

“Shhh!” hushed the tiger. “Not too loud: we don’t want any uninvited guests coming to the party.”

“Uh . . .” started Judy as she tried to recall any other names that her twin had dropped. “Um . . .” she continued, “the doctor, Coal, and . . . uh . . . .”

Shit.

“You know,” said Nick, quickly stepping in, “we really don’t have time for this. We have an intel gathering mission that we need to finish up as quickly as we can and we’ve wasted enough time here, so if you could just give us those schedules . . . .”

Bogo grunted when Arborel released him. The bovid got out his phone and searched through it before finding the relevant information and let Tobias copy it down quickly before handing it.

Nick stepped forward and quickly reached into Bogo’s holster and removed his dart gun.

“What the-” Bogo lunged for Nick, but he was too quick. He dashed out of reach and watched as Arborel and the others held him back.

“Nick, you shit-wit! What the fuck are you doing?!” growled the tiger.

“Doing what needs to be done!” said Nick as he aimed the gun at Bogo’s chest.

“Nick!” strained Judy as she cutely tried holding Bogo back, “What are you doing? Give him his gun back!”

“Okay, so just hear me out,” said Nick, “we have here what is likely to be a major security breach for the ZPD. Mammals might start asking questions—like how the hell did they get the information that they did unless they had a mole on the inside.”

Bogo grunted. “We do actually have a mole working for us-”

“Not what I meant. I mean an information leak! If he’s giving us guard schedules, it could only mean that he and a few other higher-ups could know about it! What does that mean for him! He would be under suspicion and I don’t think any of us wants that seeing as he just helped us out. So I propose that we shoot him several times to knock him out. It’ll look less suspicious that way,” he finished.

Judy cocked an eyebrow. “You think it’ll look less suspicious if a well-trained officer like Bogo lost his weapon in a struggle and got shot by it? He nearly took us all out single handedly!”

“But he has a knife wound in his leg that’s  _really_  gushing blood—by the way, you should go to a hospital when this is all over,” said Nick quickly to Bogo, “at some point, at least  _that_  is going to be a question left in mammals’ minds. We should just shoot him for one reason: Plausible deniability.”

To Bogo’s frustration, the others seemed to nod their heads slightly in agreement.

“Surely you can’t be serious!” he said, his tone completely deadpan.

“I am serious,” said Nick as he aimed the weapon, “and don’t call me Shirly.”

“Wilde, don’t you da-”

Nick fired two shots into the buffalo’s chest and watched him collapse in a heap on the ground as the others around him struggle to move him off to the side.

Nick stepped up carefully and looked at Judy. “You remember what the dosage for these things are when they’re being used one someone as big as him?”

Judy looked at Nick darkly, her face a mask of dead frustration. “Nick, do-”

Nick fired two more shots into Bogo’s rump before carefully placing the weapon back into its holster.

“Goddamnit, Nick . . .” Judy sighed as she turned away.

Nick let out a deep breath. “Okay,” he started as he looked around at the others, “are we ready to get on with this or what?”

-.-.-.-

“What’s the matter?” asked Coal.

The Human had stopped speaking, a puzzled look on his face.

The two of them were sitting across from each other in a small office. The light from the tall building they were in shone out dimly amid the darkness swirling outside, down below in the city streets.

“Sir,” asked the koala again, “is something wrong? We need to know what the next steps are. How’re we gonna spin thi-”

“Silence!” shouted The Human. “Let me think for a moment . . . .”

Coal watched as The Human frowned, looking almost pensive.

“There’s something wrong,” he said at last. “Something’s not right,” he continued.

“What is it?” asked Coal.

“If I’m right about this there’s nothing you can do. Except one thing.”

“What’s that?”

“First of all, let me ask you: Are you sure you killed . . . ugh, what’s her name again? Judy Hopps?”

“Yeah. I took her out myself.”

“You’re certain of that?”

“I overdosed her with darts and threw her off the side of a cliff. What more could I have done?”

“You should’ve put a bullet in her skull. I have a lead on the source of our recent troubles and I have a hunch that it begins and ends with  _her_. You’re not aware of the surveillance footage, then?”

“The one where Tom died? I saw it. That whatever-it-is is looking for a dead bunny.”

“She can’t be dead. He would know. You bungled it, I know you did!”

The koala stiffened but tried to show no fear in his face. “No, I di-”

“You did!” said the human as he pounded the desk.

The koala nearly jumped out of his skin and gripped the side of the table as he stood up.

“I-I swear I did my best!” Coal said as he trembled slightly.

“Silence! Say another word and I’ll tear you limb from limb. You’ve seen me do it to larger animals than you—I can assure you that I will be merciless! You failed me and jeopardised Swinton’s plans, and when you jeopardise Swinton’s plans you jeopardise  _mine_!”

The koala clenched his teeth.

“What needs to be done now must be done quickly. Time is precious if we’re to stop that mad creature and put an end to the rebellion . . . .”

-.-.-.-

The team made their way down another dark alley that ran parallel to the main streets on either side of them. They were getting nearer another dead drop.

Arborel stopped them short for just a moment and peeked around another corner before waving the team to follow him.

Judy shivered, unable to help the chill that came over her in spite of the fact that they’d been jogging at a steady pace. The reached an alcove in the midst of the alley and stopped there to catch their breaths.

Arborel looked down at Judy. “According to the timetable your friend gave us, this place is swarming with cops. Keep in mind,” he said as he looked over at the rest of the team, “that we don’t know which’re good and which aren’t: At this point, if they catch us, they’re all probably planning to shoot to kill.”

“Might’ve been nice to have Bogo send out a message to his team members,” said Forester. “This situation could’ve been easier.”

“It’s good we didn’t: That would definitely have set off alarm bells in their heads,” the tiger replied. “Besides, if the division in the ZPD is sizable enough, we might be able to use him as an insider. He could really help lead the charge and split the city from the inside.”

“That sounds distinctively like something that needs to be talked over with Honey,” said the bat.

Arborel shrugged. “We’ll have to wait here a few minutes. We can walk around, but stay in the alley and stay in the shadows!”

“I only hope the next dead drop isn’t harder to scrub than the last one,” the bat muttered.

“It should be as long as there aren’t any other police in the way,” whispered Rover. “Watching Bogo fucking charge like that would’ve made me shit myself,” he finished as he trailed off quietly.

Silently, the group slowly scattered in the alley, taking a moment to really think. Judy and Nick sat behind a dumpster a listened to the scraping pavement as the others padded around.

Nick put his arm around her and frowned at the tension he felt in her shoulders.

She was scared—all this sneaking around.

“I’m right here with you, ya’ know?” he whispered silently.

She gratefully put her paw on his where it rested on her shoulder. “I know, but I can’t wait till this whole thing is over. I just wanna go back to the burrow and forget this place. I feel like there’s danger all around us.”

“That’s because there is.”

She gave him a look.

“I’m not gonna sugar coat things, Carrots. This place is terrifying.” He yawned and leant back against the wall.

“I just wanna go home and take a bath and pretend none of this happened.”

There was a brief pause when neither of them spoke.

“You know what really sucks?” said Nick at last. When he got no response from her, he continued. “Probably all the deaths in Little Rodentia are what’re really going to get things moving in Bunnyburrow as far as helping out their cause goes.”

“Our cause,” corrected Judy.

“This isn’t our battle.”

“We have to help!” she insisted as she looked up at him.

“Of course we do— _while we’re here_. You’re not honestly telling me that if you had the chance to go back home— _our_  home—you wouldn’t take it.”

She looked away from him, troubled, but spoke honestly. “I’d be torn. I just wanna wake up tomorrow and have this whole thing be a crazy dream.”

“Me too. I just wanna be a normal officer,” he murmured.

She leant against him and he gently rubbed her shoulder. A few minutes passed with them like that before Judy suddenly started. Nick looked down at her in confusion as she pricked her ears.

“What is it?” he asked.

She looked up at him, a nervous expression on her face. “Do you hear that?”

Nick pricked his own ears and was confused by what he heard. “Nothing,” he whispered.

The stunning implication resonated in both their bones.

As one, they peaked around the corner of the dumpster to find the alley way empty. Completely, totally, and utterly empty.

“Did they leave us behind?!” said Judy as she jumped up.

Nick hushed her as he stood up. “Let’s just look at the map and see where the dead drop is.”

Judy pulled out her copy and looked at it for a moment, noting the red dots that marked up the place where the drops were.

“I haven’t been marking them off,” she said. “I need to know what street we’re on in order to see where we need to go.”

Quickly, they both moved to the end of the alley and looked around for any street sign they could.

“Cherry Lane!” she hushed. She looked back down at the map with Nick reading over her shoulder. She pointed to the nearest dot on the map. “We should go there.”

“Or maybe we should wait here! They’ll figure out we’re gone and come back for us.”

“We can catch up with them. They only just left!”

“Did they?”

Judy frowned. “They can’t’ve gone far. They were just going into that alley over there,” she said as she pointed diagonally across from her.

Nick nodded as the two of them proceeded quickly across the exposed street and then along the side walk to the alley.

And just as they turned the corner, they were halted by the sight of a silhouetted figure. The alley they were looking down was long and seemed to stretch on a long ways.

An immediate sense of relief flooded through Judy when she saw it, her initial fear and surprise melting away.

“See?” she said as she stepped forward, “I told you they’d wait for us.”

She waved with her arm and started down the alley.

To her confusion, the shadow got on all fours and began running toward them.

“Judy,” said Nick softly as he put a concerned paw on her shoulder, the sound of galloping feet reaching their ears.

The thing seemed to be picking up speed. And then they heard a low growl echo through the alley.

“Judy!” he whisper-shouted as he jerked her back. “We have to run!” he shouted as he turned.

Judy quickly spun around and leapt out of the alley and back into the street. Blindly they dashed in and out of maze-like passages and tributes that led between buildings and houses.

Judy easily caught up with him and took the lead.

When she tripped and fell, Nick came to a painful halt as his feet scraped the ground.

“Nick!” she called as she took off the goggles, “They broke!”

“Fuck!” he whispered. “Fuck, fuck, fuck!”

He saw the thing round the corner of the alley they were in and without a second thought he picked her up and started running as quickly as he could.

 _‘Not gonna die like this!’_  he thought.  _’Not gonna fucking die like this!’_

Judy called out directions for them to go in.

He turned on a dime and banked quickly whenever she told him to.

His instincts had been built for chasing creatures, and hers had been built for evasion. Several times, she had him go part way down an alley only to have him turn around and go back down another.

The scent trail was confusing, and by leaving as much as they could wherever they could was as much at they could do.

Nick was shocked when she even began taking off articles of clothing and tossing them down random tributes and passes, hoping that even noise distraction might guide whatever was chasing them in the wrong direction.

Out of breath and nearly out of hope, she had Nick run down one last alley that had a particularly bad smell.

They ran down it till they reached a dumpster that seemed to be the source of the odour.

“Get in!” said Judy in a hushed whisper. “Get in and cover yourself in the smell!”

Nick retched when he opened the lid of the trash. So did Judy.

But fear of death won out over dignity. And so, with eyes watering, she hopped into the dumpster with Nick’s help before turning to pull him in. Closing the lid was the clincher and only augmented the stench.

They struggled to breathe painfully. Their beating hearts thudded angrily in their chests and they wrestled to calm their panting.

The unmistakeable sound of padding feet was heard, and both of them covered their mouths tightly and stood stock still.

Neither of them blinked.

They clenched their teeth and willed themselves to become as still as they could.

And they waited for what eventually felt like hours—neither of them daring to move or speak.

Eventually, the growling and the padding of sharp claws and swift feet died away.

They were like children again, the two of them—afraid even when there was no sight of danger that it was merely a trap for them. And so they continued to sit: fifteen minutes became half an hour which became an hour and fifteen minutes—and still, they didn’t dare move, neither daring to fall asleep or show any sign of life.

At last, Nick dared to brave the silence. Carefully, he arose and gently lifted the lid of the dumpster just a crack and peeked out.

He saw nothing in either direction and lifted the lid a little more. Then a little more.

And by and by the lid was all the way opened, and he carefully stepped out before reaching back in to pull out Judy, who was well and truly shivering now in the cold air.

Nick quickly removed his long sleeved ammo shirt and handed it to her. It held all of his warmth in it and she accepted it gratefully.

Gently, he scooped her up in his arms and began to carry her. He poked his head around the corner of the alley and gasped, stepping back into the alley and clamping his mouth shut to keep from shouting.

In the middle of the street, he’d seen the creature. It was lying there and had been facing them.

Had it seen them?!

Judy buried her face in his chest as Nick stood still and waited for what he was sure was certain death. There was no way it hadn’t seen them. There was no way he could run anymore.

Again, he waited. And waited. And three minutes became five.

Mustering his courage, he again peeked around the edge of the alley.

It was still just sitting there, looking almost crouched.

When nothing happened, he dared the pit in his stomach and set Judy down before going out himself and stepping into full view of the thing.

When there was still no reaction, Nick padded closer. And closer.

At last, he was nearly on top of it, and he could tell that it was dead, its eyes glazed over and unseeing.

It had been a tiger.

He was naked, and to Nick’s mind was probably feral. A quick examination of the tiger’s eyes confirmed this.

He hadn’t been able to see it before because of the darkness, but its fur and the ground around it were matted with blood. The sad creature had been practically disembowelled.

He heard Judy shuffle up next to him and let out a tiny moan when she saw it lying there before firmly taking hold of Nick’s paw.

“What the hell?” she said.

Nick looked down at her before suddenly, furtively, looking up and down the street.

“Nick, let’s get out of the street,” she said.

They padded off to the side of the street and down another alley.

They stopped and looked back out at the creature.

“Did you ear anything?” asked Nick. “I mean, was there anyth-”

“No,” she whispered back, her voice breathy and scared. “I mean, we should’ve heard  _something_ ,” she reasoned. “Animals don’t have a tendency of casually turning themselves inside out!” she quickly hushed.

Nick nodded. While hugging Judy, he looked at the creature from across the street. Squinting, he could see stitches on the creature’s head as though it’d had surgery. There was what appeared to be an earring in the creature’s ear and what looked like a number on a tag.

He could see now that stitches crisscrossed all over the tiger’s body.

“He’s been operated on. Not too long ago,” murmured Nick.

“From yesterday?”

“Can’t be,” he replied. “Those animals’d still be in recovery.”

“He was just torn open,” Judy muttered.

“Maybe a blade?”

“That could rip  _a tiger_  apart in one slice?”

Both of them turned and looked back out at the dead creature.

After a brief pause, Nick looked back toward the alley.

“We have to go,” she said firmly. “We have to find them and warn them. If there are more of those things out there, we need to warn them.”

Nick nodded and scooped her back up into his arms.

And they ran off together, each of them trying with all their might not to think about what could have killed a savage tiger . . . .


	14. Fracture

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Special Acknowledgement: First and foremost I would like to thank my editor Soildier for his help in preparing this chapter.
> 
> Author's Note: You'll all be pleased to hear that I made it into grad school. It's taken a lot of work, but now it seems the hard part is ahead of me. Chapters may not be coming even on a monthly basis given all the prep I have to do and real life necessities which are cutting in to my free time, but that's life. I hope you all enjoy this chapter!
> 
> General Statement: As I stated before, I welcome any and all criticism pertaining to the story. If I miss a bit of grammar here or there let me know so I can fix it. If there's something that strikes you a mistake or an error let me know so that I can fix that, too; and yes, I do fix mistakes that are pointed out to me. Speaking from personal experience, nothing can take me out of a story more than a misspelt word or a grammatical mistake—especially if they're too common. Any other comments, questions, or concerns? Feel free to PM me.
> 
> Disclaimer: This is a work of fanfiction and has no claim whatsoever on the characters of Nick Wilde and Judy Hopps who are the sole property of The Walt Disney Company. In no way have I sought money, monetary value, nor profit of any kind for the writing of this story.

* * *

 

“Oh, shit!” shouted Tobias as he fell into last place. He and the rest of the group had fallen into a single file line.

Minutes ago, they had silently gathered together at the edge of the alley at Arborel’s gesture and looked out across the street. Wordlessly, they all looked straight ahead as they watched the last of the guards posted ‘round the corner of the block they were on: Right on schedule with Bogo’s timetable. Seems the old bull was more trustworthy than they thought.

As at last the four guards went out of sight, they quickly looked around at each other before Arborel signalled again with his paw for them to cross, and so they did in a quick shuffle.

They all looked straight ahead at their objective: the alley ahead of them. Nearly, they managed to get a block away before hearing the command from Arborel to form a line.

And that’s when it happened. That was the moment when Tobias got a clear look at everybody who was ahead of him.

And everyone who  _wasn’t_.

“Shit, shit, shit!” he hissed over and over as he skidded to a halt.

Forester turned and looked at him. “What the hell is- wait, everybody hold up!” he quietly called. “Something’s wrong.”

“What’s the matter, Tobias?” asked Rover. The fox quickly padded over and realised instantly what was wrong. “Holy fuck, where the fuck are they?” He asked.

“Who?” asked Forester. “Who’re you talking abo- Oh,  _shit_!”

“Yeah, ‘Oh, shit’s right!’“ said Tobias, nearly frantic as he spun around and started dashing back along with the others.

“Hold your positions!” came an authoritative voice. Arborel quickly strode up to them along with the others.

The three of them stopped but looked around frantically as though torn between doing as he said or running back quickly to find the lost duo.

“What’s going on?” he whispered demandingly.

“Nick and Judy’re missing!” said Rover.

“We have to find them!” said Tobias.

“You can’t just leave the group without thinking!” said Arborel as he tried to keep the sinking pit in his stomach from showing in his voice.

Tobias huffed. “I’m sorry, but-”

“But nothing!” insisted Arborel. “We’re gonna have to wait.”

To a mammal, they all looked at him as though he were crazy.

Arborel noted their looks and felt himself internally wince. “Hopefully they’ll stay put,” he finished worriedly.

“And why can’t we fucking go now? Do you realise what’s out there?” asked Tobias.

“I know, but the schedule Bogo gave is very precise,” returned the Tiger.

Understanding dawned in their faces.

“How long?” asked the vampire bat on his shoulder.

The tiger let out a sigh. “Ten minutes.”

He might as well have said a year or an eternity.

“It’s only ten minutes,” he said as he read their faces. “I’m sure they’ll be fine.”

-.-.-.-

Nick and Judy were not fine.

They were cold, they stank, and they’d just finished running from a mutilated tiger that’d gone feral which now lay even more mutilated in the middle of a city street in full view of hundreds of apartments.

The cold night air was freezing Nick, though he refused to show it. It sank into his bones as he carefully carried Judy in his arms.

“I can walk for a bit,” she said to him. “You can just guide me.”

“You sure you can walk okay?” he asked as he looked down at her.

“Walking should be fine. I didn’t hurt myself too bad when I fell.”

Nick nodded and set her down.

She walked blindly, or nearly so, and was impressed and frightened by how obscure everything was. All the streetlights were out, and so were all the traffic stops. Even if prey animals had wanted to, they wouldn’t have been able to spend time outside. Idly, Judy wondered if this last part were a deliberate attempt by the city to keep prey animals indoors—perhaps City Hall kept things dark in order to prey on the fears she and others like her instinctively had of the dark and unknown.

Judy felt braver, though. Holding Nick’s paw as they carefully meandered through the labyrinthine city, she felt more secure than she ever would have felt wandering streets such at these at night.

Stopping every once in a while to let Nick check the map, they headed very carefully back toward the alley where they’d been lost. In their avid running, they had managed to escape nearly fifteen blocks away from where they were. Now, it was their agonising task to walk all the way back, their adrenaline and energy nearly exhausted.

At last, however, they made it. And they felt there was nothing left for them to do but to sit down in the alley they’d been left in and wait.

-.-.-.-

“Okay,” murmured Hopps as she stared across the bridge, “that’s the next island. Not too much more to go, I think.” She was looking down at the map as she double checked.

“We should have only three more to go,” said Groe as he came up next to her, reading the map over her shoulder.

She nodded and let out a hum of agreement.

“Hey, listen,” he started, somewhat tentatively, “some of the guys and I were talking, and we were thinking maybe I should take the lead on the last few.”

Hopps made no movement nor show of anger but simply sat there as a feeling of unease settled in the pit of her stomach. She kept angry accusation and all possible upset out of her voice when she replied, “Oh, really?”

She cocked her eyebrow and looked up at him. His expression was dark, almost demanding. It surprised her to see him looking at her that way especially considering his voice had seemed so careful. Almost fearful.

Clearly, she’d misread him. But perhaps he was putting on a show of aggressiveness.

“Honey put me in command and nobody knows these beats like I do,” she said as she turned and looked back at the map dismissively.

“I think we may know them a little better than you do,” said Stark as he came up to stand next to Groe.

“This isn’t up for discussion,” she answered absently as she looked at the map. “I’m trying to think of what the best route would be to the next drop. It’s not too far from here,” she said as she looked across the bridge again.

“You’re right, it’s not up for discussion,” said a fossa as he came to stand next to Groe, as well. And little by little, she heard their footfalls as they all did.

She turned to see them all gather together, as though there were a line separating the predators and the prey.

Them against her.

She sighed. “Do you know all the guard schedules the way that I do?”

“You don’t know shit!” said the other fossa.

“You haven’t been able to evade the guards so far,” said Groe. “We’ve nearly been caught twice!”

“The guard schedules have changed somewhat!” she said as she stood up, her foot thumping angrily. “I  _know_  you wouldn’t have been able to do any better!”

“Maybe it’s time we find out!” returned the wolf.

“If Honey hears about thi-”

“Who gives a fuck what she thinks? She lost  _all_  cred with us the second we found out she was working with  _you_! You know, that’s really fucking sad, too: She told us you were working for her to give you cred with us but all it ended up doing was tanking hers. I can tell you right off there’s not a damn pred on our team that trusts her at all anymore. She’s a fucking traitor.  _No one_  is going to work for her, and as soon as we’re done with this assignment we’re bailing and so’s everyone in the guard.”

Judy let out a short laugh of incredulity. “Oh, you think so, huh? Where do you think you’re going to go after this? Bunnyburrow’s the only safe place for you!” she shouted, not caring that they might be overheard. Her temper flared angrily at the indignity of their words.

“Wherever we can, just so long as it’s as far from you and her as we can get,” replied Groe. “You’re lucky we’re as nice as we are: There’s a price on both your heads, now, just so you know—yours and Honey’s. And Jack’s now, too. Because of you. You really don’t get just how much we hate you! You’ve been the fucking face of our oppression all this time, jailing us, declawing us, torturing us and, now, we just found out, been killing our cubs! And outright killing adults?! You’re a fucking monster! And if we offed you right now, there’s not a damn pred that wouldn’t remember our names!”

“What?! You’re not seriously talking about killing me? Or Honey?” she said, instinctively taking a step back.

Stark smirked. “Not Honey, no. Not now, anyway.”

Hopps raised her eyebrows. “And me?”

Groe let out a puff of air. “Trust me when I say we’ve been discussing it amongst ourselves this whole time. We’d just tell Honey that you were captured. But no, we’re too nice for that.”

She barked out a laugh. “Too  _nice_?”

“Just be glad we’re letting you tag along with us.”

“And you, Zach?” she said as she looked at the bobcat, “what do you have to say about this?”

He had just come out of some shrubs, having been left the menial task of digging for a buried USB drive on the map. He held it aloft in pride for a moment but quickly dropped it when he saw the situation in front of him.

He looked at the crowd, seemingly totally bewildered. He hadn’t the faintest notion what was happening, but it didn’t look good.

“We’re taking command of this group,” said Mueller.

 _“So, Zachariah_ ** _didn’t_** _know,”_  thought Hopps. That was strange. Perhaps because he was from Bunnyburrow, they didn’t feel they could trust him.

“What?” asked Zach, now appearing bemused.

“We’re taking over the group for the last three drives,” said Groe.

“Oh,” he replied as he looked around. He got the sense, though no one told him, that the situation wasn’t entirely voluntary.

“Guys,” started the bobcat slowly, “I think this is a really bad idea. Judy knows this pla-”

“God, will you shut up?” said one of the fossas. “We get it, and you’re objection has been noted and no one gives a fuck.”

Hopps was careful to note the look of discomfort some mammals wore in spite of the show of bravado.

“If it makes you feel any better, when we get back to the boat you can tell Honey that we threatened you,” said Groe.

The grey wolf stepped in front of her and turned to face the other preds. “We don’t have that much more to go. We can break up into tea-”

“No, I don’t feel good about that. Two groups of three and one group of two?” said the bobcat. “Honey said we should stick together.”

“We’ll get done faster this way!” replied Groe.

The bobcat couldn’t believe what he was hearing. “Yeah, we also lose a lot of mammal power on the way. This isn’t the best plan. We should just do what Honey said a-”

“No one here gives a fuck about what Honey said!” growled Elhsand.

“She’s saved your lives and has been at the head of the organisation since we can remember!” he returned.

“You weren’t here. You were fucking that little pussy of yours in the Burrow. Oh, you think we didn’t hear about that?” said Mueller.

The bobcat growled. “You call her that one more time-”

“Or what?” returned the fossa.

“Or I’ll forget to be nice,” finished the bobcat menacingly.

“Meeting those fucking lookalike traitors was bad enough,” said the fossa referring to Nick and Judy, “but before we met them, you were the disgusting creature we all talked about!”

“Enough!” shouted Groe. “I’m not going to be into pulled into an argument with either of you,” he said as he looked both at Hopps and Zach. “This is happening. Since you two seem to be thick as thieves, you can work with each other. Not that any of us’d wanna work with her.”

“So what?” growled the bobcat, “If I weren’t here you’d be leaving her by herself?”

“We were trying to figure out a way to ditch her. But since you’re friends with her, I guess that ethical question is solved.”

“You fucking coward!” shouted the bobcat.

In a flash, the bobcat was on his back, the wolf on his chest, a knife pressed into his gut.

“Zach!” she shouted.

“You wanna run that by me one more time?” asked the wolf as the bobcat let out a warning growl beneath him.

“I called you a fucking coward. You wouldn’t dare do this if Honey were here,” he strained out as he felt the blade press more tightly into his stomach. He could feel the sharp steel find his flesh beneath his thick fur.

“But she’s not here. So, do you wanna die or do you wanna do as I say?” said the wolf.

“You’re gonna get yours when Honey finds out about this.”

“Honey can do whatever the fuck she wants. It’s no skin off my back. What can she do to me, anyway?”

“You’d be surprised,” the bobcat smirked.

The wolf pushed off him and strode back a few paces. Zach got up, groaning slightly, and dusted himself off.

Groe turned to the other preds. “Canne and Elhsand,” he said to the wolf and fossa, “You’re with me; Stark, Mueller, and Hester,” he said to the remaining two wolves and fossa, “You’re in another group. Hester, you’re taking lead. As for you two,” he said to Hopps and Zach as the bobcat still panted slightly from exertion, “stay the fuck away from us. The central USB is yours. And, whatever you do, don’t you dare try to fucking follow either of us or we  _will_  kill you.”

“You’re not getting away with this,” said Hopps.

“Maybe not in the long term, but in the short term, yeah, I am.”

And then he turned from them. The group of preds walked across the bridge while both the bobcat and the bunny watched them go off.

Hopps suddenly found herself fighting back tears as they disappeared into the fog.

“Hey,” said Zach as he carefully placed a paw on her shoulder “he was just talking big. No one in their right mind would be dumb enough to kill you.”

She didn’t dare let herself cry, but notwithstanding felt herself breaking inside. She had always known that hatred of her was likely to be a result of what she had done, but she had never expected things to go this far. She felt as though she were dragging down the reputations of all those around her. Which of course, she was—but it was so unfair!

“Let’s just get a move on,” she said as she shrugged off his paw.

“Whatever you say, Boss,” he murmured heartfeltly as they started across the bridge.

“Oh!” said Hopps quickly as she turned back to the land. She reached down and picked up the map she’d been reading before. “We’re gonna go here,” she said as she pointed out the location to the bobcat when she stood next to him.

“Alright,” he said said nodding next to her, “you lead.”

And they went off together.

-.-.-.-

For over fifteen minutes, Arborel and the others trekked through the alleys and streets of the unlit city, racing to find Nick and Judy. Their search results were maddeningly empty.

At first, everyone had remained quiet when, as they reached the alley the two stragglers had been left in, Arborel seemed to stifle a good amount of frustration and anger at finding them gone. He knew it was his fault for the mess in the first place, but the fox and the bunny were, according to Honey, supposed to be goddamned police officers! They should’ve known better than to wander off!

The rest of the fifteen minutes had been spent backtracking down the alleys, and when they turned up nothing, racing back and going on to search for the next dead drop in the hopes that maybe the couple had been trying to head them off at the next stop.

That was the only thing they could think of to do that didn’t involve splitting up into teams and spreading out.

The microbat with them had been sent out to give the news to Honey: They may be needing help finding the pair of them. In the meantime, they were going on a search for the remaining dead drops before turning back themselves in the hopes of finding them.

“Hotcha!” exclaimed Tobias as he finished scrubbing the last dead drop. He removed the USB drive from the port. “It’s all scrubbed. I’ve got it all in this baby!”

Arborel let out a sigh of relief. “We’ve completed our mission.”

“Now on to our secondary objective?” asked Forester.

The tiger nodded. “Finding Red and Carrots.”

“We’ve backtracked as far back as we could—from where we first started out,” started the fossa. “What if they . . . if they . . . .”

He didn’t have to say it, they were all thinking it. What if somehow the couple had been captured? They had no idea what to do in such an eventuality. It made searching for them a futile task. On the other hand, what if they  _were_  out there?

Something must have happened to them, Arborel reasoned. There’s no way two seasoned officers would go off on their own unless there were mitigating circumstances. Then again, did he really know Red and Carrots all that well? Who was to say that they were real officers? What if they were spies or civilians? But that didn’t seem right either.

There was too much mistrust and doubt to go around. Now was no time to go second guessing themselves as a unit, he just had to get on with it and try to find them. Nothing less than his best would do for Honey. He knew that already  _very_ well.

“Should we split up?” asked Shireson.

The tiger shook his head as he drew out his map. “No. That is a  _very_  bad idea. Especially in dangerous circumstances such as these. If we get pinned down, we can only rely on each other.”

“Right,” nodded Tobias, “strength in numbers.”

The tiger nodded absently as he studied the map.

“Alright,” he said as he set the map down on the alley floor, “we’re headed here,” he pointed. “We’re gonna go back and comb the streets if we have to. We’re gonna track’em.”

“Junior Ranger style?” asked Rover.

Arborel snorted. “Please, don’t compare me to those speciest assholes. But yes, we’re tracking’em.”

As a single unit, they traced their way back through the alleys, all the way back to where they knew Nick and Judy had been left.

They hadn’t gotten far, nearly a third of the way back, when they were brought up short by Arborel.

At the far end of the alley they’d just turned down, they saw what they were certain was a fox that seemed to be hunting for something as it looked down their alley.

On seeing them, the vulpine quickly dashed away.

“Hey!” uttered the tiger as he quickly dashed forward.

They all quickly fell in line behind him, struggling to keep pace with the bounding tiger.

“Did you see him,” he huffed, speaking over his shoulder at them.

Their feet scramble and scratched on the pebble-strewn ground.

“I don’t think so,” huffed Bauer who was in line right behind him.

“Neither did I,” said forester.

As they reached the mouth of the alley, Arborel slowed and checked the guard schedule to see if they had enough time to make it across without being seen.

“Just enough,” he murmured as he checked his phone.

He came to a complete stop on the edge of the street.

“Shit!” muttered Tobias: The fog was lifting slightly. It would make visibility easier and the moonlight shone through more brightly as it began to set in the west.

A small breeze picked up which seemed to be carrying the heavier mist away.

The moon was yellowish white with a brilliant halo around it.

 _‘There’s_ _danger_ _in the air,’_  thought Arborel.  _’I can smell it.’_

No, wait: he  _really could_  smell it!

There was something nearby. He could make out the faint scent of a fox, sure. But there was something else . . . something-

“Jesus Christ!” shouted Rover who immediately closed his mouth while cursing his reaction.

Arborel was about to reprimand him when he saw it, too: Before them, walking out of the alley, were three very visibly mutilated mammals. A tiger who seemed to be about his build, a panther, and a wolf.

The red eyed creatures stalked out of the alley on all fours, their teeth sharp and metallic looking. Coarse stitches crisscrossed their faces and bodies as their expressions were twisted into looks of rage and fury

Foam and spittle dripped from their maws striking at the heart of an ancient fear living in the heart of all mammals—they looked rabid!

Arborel found himself clenching his teeth and letting out an unintentional low growl.

“Pipe bomb!” he uttered. He needed someone to hand him one! They all seemed to be petrified.

“Pipe bomb, now!” he nearly shouted as he turned to rifle through his sack. The danger of taking his eyes off the creatures before him sent tremors through his paws as his fingers sought for just one.

This was also the worst case scenario. He didn’t want to have to detonate a bomb: it would mean the end of their ability to search for Nick and Judy.

One explosion and the whole block would be awake! Cops would be swarming them in minutes!

He pulled out a lighter as the creatures started running toward them, metallic claws outstretched, sharpened teeth roaring with fury and anger as they barked and howled!

He flared the lighter.

“Oh, God!” shouted Tobias.

There was no going back. Arborel closed his eyes.  _’Poor Red . . . poor Carrots . . . please let them make it out . . .’_

The roarers were half way across the street!

In the blink of an eye, Arborel lit the fuse and let the bomb fly . . .

-.-.-.-

“. . . and that seems to be the situation,” said the bat. “Sgt. Hopps and the rest of the team . . . they just left her and ensign Zach there.”

He was hanging upside down from a beam in the roof of the small cabin Honey was in and somewhat out of breath after having flown from Hopps and Groe’s team immediately after their breakup. This news was too large for him to keep to himself.

The badger’s face was in the palm of her paw and she let out a tired sigh.

“Did they notice you were missing?” she asked in a mixture of exasperation and exhaustion.

“I don’t think so,” he replied. “They might all be assuming I’m with another team.”

“Well, that makes reintegrating with one of’em easier. You can just say you were with another bunch. When you go back, though, go back to Groe’s team. I don’t want there to be any cause for suspicion.” She sighed again. “Do you think they were serious about the threat to kill her? And me, for that matter?”

“Not all words spoken in anger have meaning,” stated the bat. “That said,” he continued, “Groe didn’t seem like he was playing.”

“You think he meant to intimidate her?”

“Yeah. But he pointed out that while he wasn’t going to do anything to her or you himself that other groups were. That honestly seems like the most important feature of all of this. And he said he had plans to take off after this assignment. He didn’t say it, but I think he’s planning on taking the whole unit with him.”

Honey belted out a single laugh before putting her face in her paw again. “He thinks it’s just that easy?”

“The guard was never a formal group in the first place. More like a loose, interconnected string of like-minded mammals. They’re not well disciplined. Not like an army  _or_  a police force, even. He said the whole  _guard_  might be planning on forming their own group.”

“And where does he think his intel comes from?”

The bat stared down at her. “You know the old saying: Death before dishonour.”

“They’ll be dead without me.”

“It’s a dishonour to work with you. Death before dishonour.”

The meaning of his words hit home.

“Cut your nose off to spite your face?” she asked as she looked up at the bat. “Is that’s what’s going on here?”

The vampire nodded solemnly. “You need to take control of the situation when they get back aboard. They mentioned threats to kill you and Judy. And they went so far as to say that there was a price on both your heads, now. And Jack’s too. I don’t think you appreciated just how much they lost confidence in you and what you were doing.”

“After everything I’ve done?”

“They don’t see it that way.”

Honey sighed. “I don’t know why I even thought this would work . . .” she trailed.

“Because you didn’t know who they really were. You got to know them for, what? An hour at best? I mean, that’s what I got from Jack.”

Honey nodded. “Yeah. But  _all_  of them?”

“He may have been exaggerating.”

“I dunno. He mentioned that there were actual fucking plots, or at least discussions, about killing me? And Jack?”

“He was exaggerating, for sure.”

“They have the mamalpower to do it, though. I can’t take the threat to either of us lightly. I trusted them, too—that’s what would’ve made the job of killing me easier if you hadn’t told me about it. And enough animals have to be at least discussing it. I mean, if he, in his little group of six, were talking about it, I’m sure that other groups have been talking about it, too. What about the groups of the guard that Jack’s been leading to the Burrow? Are they coming there because they want to find a welcoming place or because they wanna kill me and Judy?”

“Could be both.”

“The things they said can’t go unpunished. I’m really gonna have to ream’em for that.”

“You’re not gonna kill them, are you?”

“They may need the threat of death. I think they’ve forgotten who they’re talking about. They’re loosely organised. Like you said, but far less loosely organised that you might imagine. I have access to far more than they do in terms of mammal power.”

“Asserting an authoritarian will, are you?”

“Not that so much as expressing the fact that we  _cannot_  be divided. It  _will_  be the end of us. If they wanna be in this fight, we have to have a united front.”

“But you’re using force? Animals don’t respond well to threats.”

“No,” she said pointedly, “I don’t.”

“But keep in mind they never actually said they  _were_  going to kill you. Or Judy.”

“That they thought about it is enough!”

“You’re taking this differently than I thought you would be.”

“It’s because when they attack me, they’re attacking the unity of the cause. Judy’s with me and I’m with Jack. He and I together unite this branch of COR. Without either of us, the entire leadership of this wing of the organisation would go down. And it could lead to some  _very_  problematic things in terms of the strategy of our forces. That’s what worries me: In attacking me, they’re attacking the organisation.”

That bat looked slightly befuddled. “I . . . that’s not quite right, I don’t think . . . .” He trailed off as Honey seemed to look rather pensive for a moment.

After a moment, “Have you ever heard of the body politic?” she asked, a contemplative look coming over her face.

The vampire bat shook his head no.

“It’s said that any leader or government has two bodies: his own physical body and the body of the state—the body politic. In the old days, it was believed that kings were like that, so that if you offended the king, you offended the whole country along with him. In the story of King Arthur, Lancelot sleeps with Guinevere, Arthur’s wife: He betrays his friend. But because Arthur is the king, the betrayal isn’t seen as a personal dispute between individuals: Arthur represented the whole country of England within himself, and so a betrayal of him as an individual constituted a betrayal of all of England. Guinevere and Lancelot effectively committed an act of treason.”

“So Arthur kills them for treason?”

“No, but he tries to. Treason is a capital crime punishable by death. But eventually he relents, and Guinevere spends the rest of her days repenting in a nunnery while Lancelot becomes a priest and monk. They really are sorry for what they did. It’s a bittersweet ending, but everyone is saved at the end, at least.” She hummed and closed her eyes for a moment before opening them again. “Their treason is real, though,” she mused, “and Arthur goes to war with Lancelot over it. The whole thing leads to the break up of the round table. Everyone dies. I think only Lancelot survives of all the knights.”

“Not to rush you, but I really need to get back and . . .” he trailed off again.

Honey smirked. “My point is . . . that’s what we’re like, now. I’m no King Arthur. I don’t want to be a king or queen or any other kind of leader. Not like that. I’m just trying to keep us alive long enough to be able to see this through. We can’t afford to be divided. If we become factionised, it’s going to be the end of us.” Her thoughts turned to Hopps and the mutineers. “The fact that they even said the words threatening to kill her is bad enough. Now they want me to step aside? Like they know how to do my job. They have no idea how involved I was in their organisation. I’m number one on Mr. Big, Koslov, and Nick’s speed dial. The guard doesn’t have the skill or the discipline to do what I’m doing. Not yet, anyway,” she amended as she looked at the bat.

“Don’t underestimate us,” he said.

“Oh, come on: I know you and the other members of the guard have talents. It’s just that . . . you’ve had no administrative experience, have you? At this level?”

The bat nodded comprehendingly.

“I’m going to have to deal with this situation when they get back aboard,” she said as she stood from her chair.

The light in the cabin was incredibly dim so as to make it comfortable for the both of them. The yellow cast of the light tinted her fur a delightful amber colour.

“Shall I tell them?” asked the bat, referring to the renegade members of the guard as he stretched his wings.

“No, don’t, or I’ll lose my advantage,” she said as she half-smiled while looking up at the bat.

“Ha!” he barked, “I’m smelling the old, devious Honey, now.”

She chuckled. “Sometimes, it’s better to rule by fear.”

Suddenly, another bat flew in through the cabin door and quickly hung himself upside down from the rafter. He was panting and out of breath

Honey looked up at him in surprise and quickly noted it was the bat she’d sent with Red and Carrots’ team.

“Honey, I’ve got some bad news from Arborel’s team,” said the bat, his voice breathy, his lungs stinging from exhaustion as he’d struggled to get there as quickly as possible.

Honey closed her eyes in a bid to control the rising anger she was feeling.

“Oh, what fresh hell is this?” she sighed.

-.-.-.-

“Hey,” started Canne as he moved next to Groe, “you don’t think you were laying it on a bit too thick back there with her?”

The sense of vague unease that had settled in the pit of the wolf’s stomach since they’d split up had only grown over time. Overall, Canne had no real objection to the break up of the team or the little bunny’s treatment at their paws; still, there is something . . . not quite right about the whole thing.

Groe shook his head slightly in response as they made their way quickly around the tiny suburban island.

“I mean . . . we aren’t really gonna kill her, are we?” prompted Canne again.

For as much as they’d been discussing it along the way before finally confronting Hopps, he had taken their comments as jokes made with a pinch of dark humour rather than as serious threats.

“No,” huffed Groe, “but she needs to know where she stands with us.”

“I’m not sure threatening her was the best idea,” chimed Elhsand. “You know she’s gonna go right to Honey with this, right?”

Groe nodded solemnly. “Fuck . . .” he sighed, “I know.”

“Are there really plots out there to kill her and Honey?” asked Canne.

Groe and Elhsand nodded.

“A few,” replied Elhsand. “We’ve gotten a few messages on our phones from other members of the group about it.”

“It doesn’t go to the top, though,” amended Groe.

Canne had been as against having Hopps in their group as much as the next predator, but the approach had seemed a bit too far-fetched for him. When he was honest with himself, though, he wouldn’t have minded getting a few hits in with the little lapin. None of them would have.

Still, his discomfort with their treatment of their nemesis hadn’t been enough for him to speak up about it. Probably because, in all truth, if she did end up dying on the job, he wouldn’t really care all that much. In fact, thought Canne, he might almost feel relieved.

There was just so much anger, true fury, directed toward her by him and the others in the group, it was impossible for anyone to expect them to simply forget it, he thought.

His pensive mood came to an abrupt end when Groe stopped them. He waved them all to stand on the sidewalk, in full view of the open street. They turned right and went down a few feet before stopping on the side of the road at Groe’s signal.

“Just right over there’s the alley,” Groe pointed.

So far, they’d managed to avoid any guards or police without Hopps’ help. As far as Canne was concerned, it was really just a matter of common sense. How the hell was it that the bunny had thought they needed her and her knowledge of the guard movements and schedules? He chuckled to himself.

Groe raised his paw in the air and held it there for a moment as he prepared to give the signal to move.

“Hey!” shouted a voice behind them.

They all quickly turned to see a stag wearing night vision goggles staring right at them. The police uniform he wore was clean and crisp looking.

From what the trio could tell, the deer had just come around the corner and stopped in his tracks on seeing them.

The sinking pit in their guts got deeper when the stag spoke into his radio.

“I have a group of renegade preds, here! Calling for razorbacks. Repeat: Calling for razorbacks!”

He gave his location and made to draw his weapon.

Before the three of them could do anything, a squad car patrolling in the area squealed its tires as it turned the corner and headed right toward them. Its headlights were on full blast as they lit up the trio as though they were on spotlight.

“Run!” shouted Groe as the car sped toward them.

Groe dashed across the street quickly and dove into the alley.

Canne ran quickly and followed behind the fossa. Keeping his wits about him, he found Groe knelt down on the ground behind a dumpster at the far end of the lane. He seemed to be chiselling at something in the wall with all his might as he desperately scrambled to get the drive out of the fucking wall.

“What’re you doing?” shouted Elhsand as he skidded to a stop.

“No time to scrub it!” exclaimed the wolf, “We just have to dig it out!” he shouted as he hammered a chisel into the wall.

The sound of marching feet reached their ears as the police made their way down the alley.

“Fire!” called someone behind them.

Sharp, loud bangs echoed behind them and spattered the wall.

Canne dove for cover but tripped. He suddenly let out a shout, yelping as he fell to the ground clutching his ear as crimson blood poured from the side of his head.

In a flash, Elhsand gripped the wolf under his armpit and dragged him around the corner.

An instant later, Groe smashed out the USB and, skulking behind trashcans, managed to make it around the corner.

“Frontliners, move!” a voice commanded behind them.

“Hey, can you move?!” shouted the wolf as he looked down at Canne. “They’re fucking coming after us! We gotta fucking move!” he shouted.

Both Groe and Elhsand hauled the wolf to his feet and broke into a run.

“Now, we just gotta signal . . . oh,  _shit_!” shouted Groe.

“What?” asked the fossa as they quickly helped Canne along.

“The fucking bat! We need the fucking bat to signal the ships! I fucking forgot! Oh, shit! Where the fuck is he?!”

Canne started running forward on his own steam, forgetting the fire that burnt on the right side of his head. Adrenaline was keeping him from feeling much as it finally kicked in.

They rounded another corner; then another. At each turn, the sound of blasting guns and pounding feet spurred them onwards.

“I’m right here!” called a voice overhead. “You need me to message the boats?”

“Yeah,” shouted Groe as he stopped for a moment and rifled through his pack. He pulled out his lighter and a pipe bomb. “Is the way clear ahead? Can we make it to the sea?”

“The way ahead’s clear! I’ll let them know!” shouted the bat.

“Go quick, this is gonna hurt your ears!” shouted Groe. He lit the fuse and let the bomb fly.

It landed in the alley just as some forces rounded the bend. Groe had already pulled out another and started running as quickly as he could.

“Duck for cover!” he shouted.

As one, the team landed flat on their stomachs before the deafening explosion resounded throughout the neighbourhood.

In a flash, they were on their feet again, dashing through the neighbourhood as lights, sirens, and car alarms seemed to be blaring to life all around them.

The island was tiny—the only thing for which the wolf could be grateful.

They would be at the shore in no time. He could only hope the other teams would be having better luck.

-.-.-.-

“Son of a bitch!” shouted Honey as she picked up her water mug and shattered it against the wall of the cabin.

The bat covered his face with his wings as shards of glass and clay fragmented.

Honey took several deep breaths and paced as she worked to calm her nerves.

“Okay!” she barked sharply before stopping to take a few more breaths. “Okay . . . so . . . so, Jack’s closer to them,” she said as she thought aloud, “Send a message to his boat that Hopps and her fucking team need a quick extraction. You’re gonna have to go between all fucking four of us now and coordinate this fucking thing!” Her voice rose with anger and worry as she looked up at the bat.

The bastards, they should have fucking stuck together, she thought. Now, they had placed the bat’s life in danger. There were police swarming everywhere and Santiago was going to have to fly overhead in the midst of a no-fly zone and get everyone on the same fucking page!

She pounded the desk she’d been sitting at as the thought galled her, and she swept a paw over her face.

“Okay, go—we don’t have a minute to lose! Maybe see if you can get another one of the bats to assist you. In fact, see if you can get two more—one for each team,” she murmured darkly.

Anxiety burst through her nerves as the whole fucking plan seemed to be breaking up before her eyes.

 _‘The minute they find out we have ships in the water’_  she thought,  _’the coast guard are gonna be on us.’_

The bat flew off a moment later into the night air as she sat down.

Their boat was itself on its way to pick up Arborel’s team which was in the greatest peril from what their bat had told her. And what was worse, Red and Carrots were lost somewhere in the city! The bat had made certain to emphasise that they’d had no part in leaving them behind. It had all been entirely accidental, as far as the bat knew: not even he had noticed their missing until it was pointed out by the little fossa, Tobias.

“Honey,” came a voice.

She looked up just in time to see an otter turn the corner.

“Tell me something good!” she said.

“We have the extraction point in sight.”

That could be either good or bad depending on the circumstances.

“Alright. Let’s wait it out till we get word from one of the bats that they’re there,” she said.

“Sure thing! I’ll tell the captain.”

She nodded as he left.

“The only way this could get worse is if we all died,” she sighed.

-.-.-.-

The Human let out a furious sigh as the elevator dinged, letting him out into the lobby of the office building he and Coal had been in.

The koala followed him quickly as he adjusted his uniform.

“Sir!” called out Rhinowitz as the Human approached. The rhino and several other mammals in police uniform and riot gear were waiting for him in the building’s vestibule.

“What the fuck is going on out there?” asked the Human as he strode through the doors into the street.

All around them, police sirens were whirring and explosion after explosion shook the tall building surrounding them.

“We don’t know!” said Rhinowitz as he followed along behind him. “Some preds’ve been spotted in the area!”

“Probably trying to save their fucking mouse friends. They should’ve found them in the water. What the hell are they doing on land?” puzzled the Human.

A police car squealed up next to them and both Bellwether and Pricilla piled out along with Woolter.

“What the shit, Rhinowitz? What the hell is going on?” the pig asked.

“I don’t know any more than you do!” he shot back.

“It’s a group of chompers,” replied the Human. “They’re in the city for some reason. They’re looking for something . . . .”

He trailed off in thought but was interrupted mid-thought a moment later as an officer dashed out of the building they’d just come from.

“It’s Arborel! It’s Arborel!” shouted the stag as he ran up to them.

“Who the hell is he?” demanded the Human.

“A former employee of the ZPD,” replied Rhinowitz.

“Where’re they headed?” asked Swinton.

“Looks like they’re making a run westward,” replied the officer

“To the bay!” shouted the Human as he looked around at them. “Call the coast guard—they’re likely to have ships waiting for them out there. I want them cut off at the pass! Get everyone down to the shores. We’re gonna throw everything we have at them.”

“That’s not much after last night. We used most of it on Happy Town!” said a stag officer.

“Goddamnit!” shouted the human. “Are all of you fucking useless morons!” His eyes blazed red and the ground beneath them all shook even as another explosion sounded, more closely to the shore this time.

“You!” he shouted at the stag, “Get a large group down to the shore right now. Make your main focus firing on the ships!”

“We have officers there already but there’s nothing to be seen! It’s the fog! It’s-”

“And the coast guard?” demanded the Human.

“They’re in the water and on their way.”

“I want every boat in the water! We’re gonna hunt them down if it’s the last thing I do!”

“We’re spread too thin for that,” said Rhinowitz calmly. “We’re fighting one battle in the canal district and another one here. We have every officer in the water and on land fighting a three-pronged attack that we can’t sustain. There aren’t that many of us. You’ll have to pick one.”

“Son of a bitch!” he shouted.

The Human paced for a moment before they all caught a red gleam in his eyes.

“Swinton . . . I think it’s time for you to head down to the site of the fighting and show what you can really do for this city. The mangy savages’ve played right into our hands. Capitalise on this moment and own it! If the citizens of this city see you playing the part of an involved mayor they’ll play right into your paws.”

“You sure it’s not dangerous?” she asked timidly.

“Do it. Show them all that your authority is not to be questioned. Take Bellwether with you.”

The pig and the sheep quickly turned and went back to the squad car leaving the Human on the sidewalk with the others.

“Sir,” ventured a stag, “there’s other news, too: We just found Chief Bogo in an alley, darted but still alive.”

“Alive?” asked the Human. “How odd.”

“From what I’ve been told from the battle front, they don’t have guns like we do.”

“You said he was darted?”

The stag nodded. “With his own weapon.”

The Human raised his eyebrows looking genuinely surprised before the wheels really started turning in his head.

“So . . . so they darted him with his own weapon? How do they know?” he asked.

“He was hit once in the chest and twice more in the rump. We checked his weapon and three rounds were missing.”

The Human stopped and looked at him. “You recovered his weapon?”

“It was just in his holster.”

“Ha!” laughed the human. “Oh, we’ve got him, now.”

“Sir?” asked Rhinowitz.

The Human looked up at him. “They’re covering something up. We were meant to think that someone fired the dart from their own gun. It’s improbable that Bogo would have lost his weapon. He likely would have been badly hurt if it  _had_  been lost in a struggle.”

“He does have a nasty knife wound in his leg,” offered the deer.

The Human hummed. “So there was a struggle.”

“And he could have lost his weapon,” said Rhinowitz.

“Yes,” said the human in a frustrated hiss. “But see, that’s the thing: Why not simply take it? They replaced it because someone’s trying to out think us and I don’t know why.”

“What do you want to do?”

The Human thought for a moment.

“Get Yaguarete and have him at the hospital when Bogo wakes up.”

He grinned menacingly.

“We’re gonna play a game of twenty questions . . .” he trailed.

-.-.-.-

“Oh, what the fuck is that?” asked Hester.

The distant sound of another explosion caught Stark’s ears as he and the rest of the team crouched low in some bushes that lined the main road.

The group of three had just captured their assigned dead drop and were headed toward Groe’s island after having managed to make it to the bridge without being seen.

They hunkered even lower when they heard police sirens on the other side. Further explosions told them that their counterparts were moving westward.

They jumped slightly when sirens sounded behind them and watched with growing apprehension as a caravan of police cars and SWAT vehicles gradually made their way toward them before finally passing them.

Hester sat as still as a stone as he tried to work out what to do. There was no way to make a rendezvous with the other team, now.

At last, he decided on a course of action.

“C’mon, we need to make it to the shore. We can hide in the tree line in the park until we receive instructions,” he said, indicating a large grove of trees down by the shore.

The one good thing he could say about the other team being caught is that it took attention away from them.

On his signal, when he was certain there was no one about, he motioned to the two wolves on either side and quickly booked their way down to the shore and into the woodsy area.

They ran into a thicket before crouching down while trying to think about the next course of action.

“Fucking finally!” shouted a voice from above.

The bat landed and hung himself upside down from a tree branch. The little creature seemed positively frantic.

“You guys need to make it to the west. Jack’s got a motor boat there waiting for you.”

“Oh fuck, does he know already?” asked Mueller.

“About what? That you betrayed the group?”

The three predators groaned and covered their faces: If the bat knew,  _everyone_  knew.

“Ah, shit,” spat Hester.

“Better get yourselves nice and lubed up, ‘cause you all’ve got an ass-reaming in store when you get back aboard.”

The three looked at each other and cringed at the sound of bullets firing and another explosion that pained their ears.

“You guys better get a fucking move on,” the bat urged. “See your asses when you come aboard!” he hollered as he took off.

At the sound of another explosion, they all quickly started jogging before breaking into an out and out run.

It was high time they got the hell out of there.

-.-.-.-

Nick and Judy huddled together as the air around them rumbled. Some minutes ago, the first explosion rocked their location. The nearby sounds of shattering glass along with screams and shouts from the apartment buildings in the area had been a persistent hum in both their ears.

Moments after the first explosion, police swarmed the area.

The two of them stayed put as much as they could, not wanting to draw any more attention to them than necessary. But subsequent explosions told them the battle was moving when the concussions emanated from a different location.

They stiffened as the battle seemed to be coming closer.

Above them and all around them, animals were opening their windows to see what the matter was—not that they would see much in the darkness.

“Holy shit!” shouted one voice across the alley to a neighbour, “Did you fuckin’ hear that?”

“What the fuck was that?” came another.

“Nick, we have to go,” Judy said. She pushed off his chest and got up. “Nick, the cops are going to be here any minute!”

“I know, but where are we gonna go?” he asked. He hadn’t given up, but he genuinely had no idea.

Judy thought for a moment.

“Unless,” he started, “we just go right for the shore.”

Judy nodded to herself. “That seems like the best idea. At least we  _know_  we all have to meet up there.”

Nick nodded to himself and stood up.

“Can you move?” he asked.

She tested out her leg. It still smarted from the fall.

“I can walk,” she said.

“Alright, we’ll try walking. If we need to run, though . . . .” He’d have to carry her again.

His bones ached from the chill in the air as the two of them slowly made their escape.

-.-.-.-

“Mayor Swinton?” asked an officer as he watched the pig stride toward him. She’d just emerged from a patrol car that squealed as it pulled up.

Volleys and explosions could be heard as the sounds reverberated around them mingled with the shouts of scrambling officers.

She walked up to the ram casually. “I’m just here to oversee the situation,” she said as she stepped forward.

She turned to regard the shore a ways away where most of the action seemed to be taking place. There was a short wall that ran alongside the main road separating it from the beach. The rebels were behind it, throwing pipe bombs that sounded deafening blasts.

“I’m confused. Are you taking command?” asked the ram.

“No, no. I just thought it’d be best for me to be down here with my constituents. Yaguarete’s in charge?” she asked cordially.

“No, actually they just pulled him out. Some hot shots downtown wanted to see him. They just put Assistant Deputy Cornwall in. Don’t you need night vision goggles?” he asked.

“I’m fine,” she murmured vaguely.

There was a brief pause where she watched what appeared to be a kind of mayhem. She looked around, scanning the fog laiden bay for any sign of the rebels.

She clenched her teeth as she heard a faint humming.

From out of the fog, she saw a rowboat with a motor attached beach itself on the shore.

“Oh, shit!” she exclaimed as she realised what was happening. “Do we have snipers on the roof? I want the boat taken down!” she shouted.

The ram seemed startled by the quick shift in her demeanour. “No, we just got down here a few minutes ago—no one’s in position yet, I don’t think!”

“Well, why the hell not?!” she screamed.

“We just switched commanders!” exclaimed the ram. “We haven’t heard anything. He’s still getting up to speed on everything!”

“Damnit!” she shouted.

-.-.-.-

Arborel ducked behind the wall with the others. They only had a few bombs left. He carefully peered over the wall and watched as police and SWAT vehicles pulled up. Armoured animals spilled out of the back and took cover behind the cars as they set up for a volley.

“Should we . . . ?” asked Tobias as he held up a bomb.

“Save it,” whispered the Tiger.

There seemed to be a lull in the gunfire.

At that moment, he and the others heard the rumble of a motor, and he turned and watched as a motorised rowboat made its way toward them.

In an instant, Arborel turned to the others.

“Get out all your bombs, now! We’re gonna light’em all at once and launch’em!”

The six of them instantly dove for their packs and dug out what they could.

One by one, they quickly lit the fuses while avoiding gunfire as they looked over the wall, launching the bombs with all their might at the vehicles and officers.

Then mammals ducked behind the wall as the resounding blasts lit up the sky, for a moment causing the remaining fog in the air to shimmer.

The sound of shattering windows added to the sounds of screams and agonised cries as glass fragments fell to the ground in a cascade of shards.

Police officers were on the ground screaming from injuries as the multiple concussions shook the air, blowing several of them back.

Many were covering their eyes as the night vision goggles temporarily blinded them.

“To the boat!” shouted Arborel. He picked up Tobias and the two raccoons and bounded forward while the others followed quickly.

Their distraction proved enough, and they avoided the bullets of those still firing for just long enough to make it to the tiny bark.

Arborel helped the others aboard, nodding to the otter who’d ridden out to them, before quickly turning the boat around and pushing it out into the bay. Anxiety and frantic movements plagued him as he struggled past the slight waves as he tried to manoeuvre the boat to a point where the motor wouldn’t end up grounded.

It felt as though it were taking far longer for him to do so as his wet trousers dragged him, making it feel though he were marching through molasses. He stole a quick look behind him and found the police regrouping.

And then his heart seized: For just a brief instant, he could see two unmoving mammals.

They were far away, and to most eyes were likely hidden in the shadows of the alley they were in. And though Arborel couldn’t make them out thoroughly from where he was, he knew they were Nick and Judy.

Guilt poured through him as he heard the motor roar to life. He was too heavy to be pulled inside without risking toppling the boat. All he could do was cling to the side as it dragged him through the chilling temperatures.

He closed his eyes and felt his heart break when he opened them again.

They were still standing there, watching him.

-.-.-.-

Nick felt himself break inside as he watched the boat speed away.

He clenched his teeth when he heard Judy next to him sob once, despondently, into his side.

Now they were trapped.

He had half a mind to brave the icy waters, thinking in a half-crazed state that it would be better to try for it than to face whatever tortures were awaiting them here. It was the proverbial rock and a hard place.

He and Judy looked on as the boat disappeared into the fog.

“Stop right there, pred!” shouted a voice behind them.

Instantly, the two of them turned to see an officer holding them at gun point.

Some other officers appeared next to the other—two boars and stag.

In a flash, Nick had Judy in his arms.

He ran down a twist in an alley and heard pounding feet behind him.

As he dashed through the close-knit buildings, he could hear one of the officers behind him calling for backup. Nick felt himself shudder as the chill sank into his bones: The wind had shifted, and a heavy fog from the bay was rolling in again. Visibility was getting cut down to nothing—even Nick’s natural night vision couldn’t penetrate the darkness.

The shadows around him flickered as moonlight spilled in-between the buildings through which he was moving. He felt fear and desperation fill his heart and mind. The place was inundated with police: There was  _no way_  there was a good ending to this but he  _had_  to try!

The soreness in his legs was getting to him. He was unprepared for another long run.

His injuries from just a day ago were attacking his chest and sides with a vengeance as he struggled to breathe.

“C-Carrots . . .” he gasped as he felt himself slowing, “I-I’ve gotta put you down. Hide in a trash can or whatever you’ve gotta do, I’ll keep them running!”

“No, Nick!” she exclaimed, “you can’t leave me! Don’t you dare leave!”

“I can draw them off. You . . . you can . . . .”

“No!”

She clung to him tightly even as desperation settled in her stomach. She could feel him slowing.

He skidded painfully to a halt and let out a shout of fear when five more officers turned the corner down the alley and started toward them.

“Hands up or we’ll shoot!” they shouted.

Nick dashed again into another alley, running as fast as he could while leaving a track of bloody footprints on the ground behind him.

Shards of broken glass were everywhere, evidence of the bombs’ destructive power even at such a distance. Absently, he began to piece together in his mind what it was that had happened.

Something had spooked the rest of the team so much that they had detonated a bomb. He got a vague sense of what their trail was and wondered absently why they were so far from the shore unless . . .

They’d been looking for them.

He pivoted when another two officers came down another alley. As long as he could stay ahead of them, he could-

“Freeze!” shouted a voice behind him.

He turned to face the mammal before he heard another voice.

“Checkmate, savage!” shouted yet another voice, this time ahead of him.

He froze for an instant as he tried to work out where to go.

They were on him in a flash—the eleven other’s poured out of the side alley and surrounded them.

Their guns were all aimed and cocked.

Carefully, Nick set Judy down and raised his paws.

At that moment, the wind shifted a bit, and suddenly the fog was everywhere. The darkness blocked out nearly everything save for some stray beams of moonlight that caught in the misty clouds.

“Oh, fuck!” shouted an officer.

“Take out their knees, quick!” cried another. “We can’t let them escape!”

Nick flattened his ears and braced as he closed his eyes.

For the officers, their hesitation lasted a hair too long as in the next instant, the fog rendered the goggles useless. A cloud covered the sky, blocking the moon.

Nick could hear and feel Judy trembling beside him—she was just as scared as he was. He made to reach out to her and take her paw but suddenly stopped.

He heard the gun cock an instant before it went off. He flinched and stood still for a moment. He heard Judy cry out and quickly opened his eyes. He was close enough to her that his eyes were able to see through the darkness and regard her. Slowly, he realised she wasn’t in any pain as his vision quickly roamed every inch of her as she shakily stood, her eyes seeking for him blindly.

“Judy, I’m fine!” he whispered to her and instantly watched her face relax in relief.

A second later, though, his attention was drawn away from her as he thought he heard a gurgling sound coming from the direction of the gunshot accompanied by several officers shouting.

“Holy shit!”

“What the fuck is that thing?!”.

He turned as the wind shifted again, blowing away some of the fog. There, held in the dim beams of the setting moon, Nick beheld the horrific sight: The officer, who’d apparently been about to shoot him, was gaping with his mouth open as a long, curved blade protruded from his chest.

Nick felt his blood run cold: the silhouetted figure appeared to be the same one that Honey had shown them. The armoured creature’s face was obscured by a cowl covering everything but his muzzle.

The figure was holding the officer’s gun hand and had apparently let it fire over Nick’s head.

Nick grabbed Judy and ran to the side of the alley as quickly as he could while the officers’ attention was drawn to the figure. He tumbled over and spilled a trashcan as the figure withdrew the blade and cut off the officer’s head in a single strike.

Before a single shot was fired, the creature threw the corpse at the group of officers. They managed to avoid it before turning back to back to the creature: It had disappeared, and the dense fog obscured all movement.

“Shit, where’d it go?” one asked.

An officer at the far end of the alley had only a moment to utter a loud shout when he found the creature suddenly standing in front of him before the creature delivered two quick strikes, with the last severing his jugular. The officer barely had a chance to utter a dying shout.

The creature finished with that officer before disappearing back into the fog.

Another officer took aim with his gun and found it cut cleanly in two. He barely had a chance to shout before a splash of blood wet his uniform as the blade cut him down.

Several others started firing while Nick and Judy, surprised and frightened, pressed themselves against the brick wall building.

They watched as the figure seemed to appear quickly from one end of the battle to the other.

He flashed behind another officer and jammed his blade through the officer’s chest. Another officer, aiming at him from behind, suddenly shouted as the figure seemed to evaporate into thin air before the blade cut cleanly through his neck.

Judy trembled in Nick’s arms as the pungent scent of blood reached her nose. Her nearly blind eyes looking into the dense nothingness of fog and darkness raised her hackles as the sounds of muffled screams permeated the air.

Nick watched hazily as the figure turned to the last three officers.

The figure let his blade fly and watched with grim satisfaction as it smacked right into the officer’s head.

The last two officers quickly fired two rounds each at the creature. They were startled to see they had no effect before the figure jumped in midair, spinning once, landing a fierce blow to the second officer’s chest, throwing him back, as the third ran up to him.

Wordlessly, and without explanation, Nick and Judy watched as the third officer was tossed up and slammed by an invisible force. He crashed against the alley wall with a dull smack before falling to the ground in a crumpled heap.

The final officer tried to fire his gun again as he recouped himself but found he couldn’t pull the trigger, his paws trembling desperately as the creature slowly walked toward him.

A stomach turning crack echoed throughout the alley. Nick clenched his teeth and looked on as the officer screamed, genuine terror settling in his gut: The mysterious figure hadn’t even laid a finger on the officer. Dropping his gun and clutching his arm, he bent. Another dull crack followed. The officer to let out another terrible scream as the bone in his leg was shattered by an unseen power.

“No! p-p-plea-!”

Nick trembled with terror as he saw the creature raise its paw and give one last flick of its wrist, the officer’s neck breaking, forced into a horrifyingly unnatural angle.

Breathing calmly, the bloody creature turned to face the last two living beings in the alley.

Nick clutched Judy tightly as the figure walked toward them. He seemed to smirk slightly at them and stopped. A moment later, the figure reached up a paw and drew back the cowl that obscured its face.

Nick’s eyes widened in surprise to see a silver fox looking down at him.

Nick jumped when the figure brandished his blade, the gouts of blood on it flying off as he slashed it through the air in a quick swipe before sheathing the thing behind his back.

Judy trembled slightly as she turned to see him. The coppery smell of blood stank in the air and revolted her.

The fox didn’t move as he finally spoke. “I’ve been looking for the two of you for a while now.”

He started toward them.

Nick scooched away as the came nearer, pain preventing him from moving as much. He turned slightly to cover Judy.

The figure smirked. “If I wanted you dead, you’d be dead. I don’t play with my food. Much. I’m here to save your asses.”

For a moment, neither Nick nor Judy thought they’d heard him correctly.

“Wh-what . . .” trailed Judy as she tried to understand.

“I’m here to get you out of the city,” said the creature.

Nick looked confused.

The creature sighed. “I’m here to save you and get you back home.” He was running out of ways to say it. “More police are gonna show up, and you can’t be here. They were calling for backup earlier. I heard them. And now we need to go.”

Nick’s mind was too frazzled to think. “Who are you?”

“We don’t have time for that. Jesus, you’re as thick as the other one . . .”

“We can’t,” replied Nick. “The boats-”

“They don’t matter.  _We need to go_. I just need to know where you guys are staying.”

“I . . .” stammered Nick, “what?” he finished as he stood up and started backing away.

Both foxes and Judy turned their heads as they heard the voices of more officers nearing them.

“You don’t have time for this. Tell me where you’re staying!” insisted the armoured fox in a hushed whisper.

“I-in Burrow! In Bunnyburrow!” shouted Judy.

“ _Where_?”

“At my parents’ place, but h-”

In a sudden pop, Nick and Judy felt suddenly twisted and contorted into several shapes as a bright light flashed around them. It happened in the space of a second, and suddenly, the couple found themselves standing, miraculously, outside of Judy’s family home.

The figure stood before them, an expectant look on his face.

Nick and Judy looked on for a beat before promptly kneeling down and vomiting.

“Aaaaand  _there_  it is,” he said as he eyed them dully. He cocked an eyebow. “Welcome back.”

-.-.-.-

Honey stared off into the distance, totally stunned as she hung up her cell. The conversation she’d had was too much to believe and she was on the verge of freaking out.  _Somehow_ , both Red and Carrots had  _not only_  managed to escape the city, but they had done so, apparently, with the aid of the creature that’d been hunting them which, they added, was a fox. And  _then_ , for extra measure, not only had he saved them and gotten them out of the city, he’d gotten them all the way to Judy’s house.

Her mind was totally fried at the way this evening had gone. She had managed to verify by means of a video conversation that it was really them and that they really were at Judy’s home. Considering the hideous execution of the mission she’d sent everyone on, she was willing to not question the  _single_  piece of good news that had come out of the whole ordeal. At least, not now—the murderous fox would still need to be vetted by her and the rest of COR, but that could be handled later. At that moment, she was just grateful.

The bat assigned to Arborel’s team had made certain to emphasise the accidental nature of Red and Carrots having been left behind. The fact that they’d taken so long had been reportedly due to the fact that they’d spent quite a bit of time trying to find the two. There was a missing piece of the story and that was Nick and Judy’s account.

She’d kept the conversation relatively short after she got past shouting her surprise at the fact that they’d managed to get home so quickly. Arborel in a delirious state had said that he’d just seen them moments before the boat went out into the bay.

They’d had to evacuate the area quickly, and managed to avoid the coast guard long enough to be able to launch a few surprise attacks on those few who came too close.

And now she stood once again on the opposite shore. Judy was safe, she thought. And that brought to her mind another thought: by the grace of God, Judy and Ensign Zach had managed to complete their mission without incident. They had come back to the boat early and had been relieved of their duties for the evening, in spite of their clear desire to return to shore at the sound of the skirmishes taking place on the mainland.

The consequences for the teams’ disobedience to Hopps and to  _her_  would have to be sorted out right then, Honey thought. There was going to have to be some clarity as to what it was that she expected from the teams she commanded and what they wanted from their service. There cannot be two commanders of a single force. Individuals needed to be united—the right hand needed to know what the left hand was doing.

She sighed as she went back aboard her boat.

She only hoped when Groe came before her that she’d be able to keep her temper. She had strong doubts she’d be be able to.

-.-.-.-

“Groe,” said Jack as the large wolf strode aboard, “Honey wants to talk to you in one of the meeting cabins below deck. Margaret’ll escort you,” he said as a rather attractive female wolf gestured with her arm.

“This way,” she said.

Not a minute later, she’d led him through a series of narrow corridors until at last she reached a door and indicated that he should go through.

Her relative bruskness coupled with Jack’s earlier tone told him all he needed to know. He was in deep shit. But who the fuck cared? What was the worst thing she could do? Fire him? That’d be just fine with him. He’d go find another branch of the guard to join. Or form his own group.

His self-assured confidence was wiped from his mind, however, the instant he stepped though the door.

Honey sat in the large, spacious room against the other side of the wall. It left a lot of ground to cover between the two of them. The effect of her sitting so far away from him in such a large room should have made her appear smaller, and yet it didn’t.

She was the only focus of the room, and it gave the impression that she was the centre of it all—as though the room and everything in it revolved around her.

He gulped silently and stood at the entrance as he heard the she wolf close the door behind him.

“Come here,” she said softly.

His courage abandoned him.

“Come here,” she said again, the softness of her voice belying the strength of that single command.

He took a few paces forward.

“Closer,” she said.

She was a master of silences, and used the emptiness of the room and the softness of her voice to draw him in still further. These were not the actions of a leader, he thought. On the other paw, strong dogs seldom bark. She had no need to prove her authority to him: A queen may act however she pleases—she has no need to prove she’s queen.

He crossed his arms and waited in the silence for her to speak.

“Uncross your arms,” she said sharply. “And stand up straight.”

Wordlessly, he did so. He couldn’t defy her if he tried, and it  _infuriated_  him.

“So,” she started, “I’ve been hearing things. You have a big mouth when I’m not around. I didn’t think I would have to babysit adults, but perhaps that aspect of my philosophy is due for some revision.”

He said nothing, looking her right in the eyes.

“Oh, so you wanna be feisty?” she said as she stood. “Tell me, did you or did you not threaten my life and the life of one of my finest officers?”

The wolf felt as though stones were sinking in the pit of his stomach.

“I only meant-”

“That’s either a  _yes_  or a  _no_!” she exclaimed.

He jumped and stammered. “I . . . yes! But we weren’t actually gonna kill her. Or you! There are mammals out there who do, though, and I . . . we were just . . . we were angry!”

He bit his tongue at the killer look she gave him.

“Why would you do that—why would you even  _say_  that—after everything I’ve done for our cause?” she said, her voice quiet once again.

“It’s just . . . Judy . . . .”

“Judy,” she repeated. “The spy who’s been giving me information from the ZPD. That Judy? The Judy who’s risked her life to get mammals sentenced to death out of custody? That Judy? The Judy to whom you owe your very life? That Judy? You fucking moron! We could have all been killed! Santiago was flying around for a lot longer than he should have been. If he had died, it would have been your fucking fault! Don’t you care?! The information was sensitive! If it had fallen into the wrong paws it could have meant the end of everything we’re trying to do! All because you couldn’t let go of your anger toward her for two hours?! You weren’t able to see the bigger picture? You can’t get that when we’re out there, we need to have a united front?! All because Judy—who was acting on  _my_  orders—was infiltrating the ZPD?”

“I . . .” he trailed; he felt convicted and humiliated. How could he express his level of hatred for the creature? In the face of everything she said, his resentment seemed illogical. On the other paw . . . .

“Right,” he started again, “so you wanted me,  _us_ , to trust Judy Hopps, right? The Judy Hopps who led a media campaign against us preds: That Judy Hopps? The Judy who nearly got us run out of Bunnyburrow? That Judy Hopps?! Or how about the Judy Hopps who did irreparable damage to  _our_  cause?! Who campaigned for legislation against us? Who talked about the need for us to wear fucking collars?! What about  _that_  Judy Hopps?! What about  _her,_  huh?! You expect me to flip a switch and like her?!”

“I expected you to be able to work as a team for the greater good!” she shot back. “I expected you to be able to see beyond your own needs and work for the needs of  _all_  mammals! And you  _were_  up until you all went your separate ways!”

“How was I supposed to know things would end in disaster?!”

“If you’d listened to her fucking warnings, you  _wouldn’t have,_  you fucking idiot! I didn’t put her in charge of the rest of you guys for the hell of it; I did it for a reason: She knows the ZPD and all the ins and outs of the city that even  _you_  might not be aware of! Instead you let your pride get in the way of what she was saying! You couldn’t stand to be ordered about by a bunny, and least of all  _her,_  in spite of the fact that she has had more experience and more courage when it comes to the kind of work I’m  _relying_  on you and the rest of the guard to do! But she can’t do it alone. I  _need_  the rest of you to be with me on this!”

The wolf took a deep breath. “None of us are going to follow you or Judy. Or Jack for that matter, and that’s flat!”

“It’s not something you have a choice in!”

“The fuck it isn’t, you dumb fucking bitch!” he shouted. “We’ll form our  _own_  group far away from you.”

“Oh you think it’s that easy?! And where are your connections?! You’re telling me that you by yourself—a bunch of inexperienced civilians playing at soldier—are going to successfully set up an international spy agency that even comes close to what we at COR have going on in terms of special ops and espionage? You’re a fucking joke and you know it! You wouldn’t be anything without COR! All the intel, all the information that saved your asses countless times, would have been thrown out the window. Maybe you feel safe taking that risk, but how about your wife and cub? What would you have done if you  _hadn’t_  gotten that tip that a raid was going on in your area of the city? Thank Hopps for that.”

That gave him pause.

“Yeah, that shut you right the fuck up, didn’t it?” she smirked. “You’re really great at what you do, but no one is an island. I’m not going to stand here and tell you that I don’t need the guard, because I do. But you need me, too. Our efforts need to be coordinated and we need to be able to depend on and trust each other!”

“That’s just it!” he returned, “we  _don’t_  trust you. We don’t  _trust_  you!” he shouted, repeating. “And I don’t think we ever can. Not completely. And it’s all because of that little bitch. So no!” he shouted, his anger flaring again, “we’re not going to work with you! Not any of  _us_  anyway!”

“Then you better be prepared to fail miserably!” she growled.

“Eat shit,” he spat as he turned from her toward the door.

He heard the knife whistle and turned just in time to feel it fly right beside his cheek.

In a flash, she was on him, another knife drawn as she jumped at him, pounding down on his chest with both feet.

He let out a shout and fell backwards, going flat on his back. He landed hard and grunted in pain. He was about to struggle when he felt the blade pressed into his throat.

“Now you listen to me and you listen well, you son of a bitch: Maybe you wanna throw that macho shit around and prove you’re the top dog! I guess that means I’ll just have to take some time to remind you who the real alpha is!” she growled as she pressed the knife further into his neck. “Now, I get it: you don’t like me and you don’t trust me since you found out that I was working with Hopps, and I can get that. But I’m also the leader of this wing of the resistance and damnit that commands some respect. Now, you once said that I’d earned a measure of your respect by sticking to my guns and showing integrity, but believe you me, if I don’t have all of it by the end of this conversation I’m going to kill you and take all of it because I don’t fucking play games! When something is a matter of life or death it is a matter of  _life and death_. And you do _not_  threaten one of my officers!

“If I give an order I expect it to be obeyed. If it had been something minor I probably would have let it go, but you and your friends were plotting to end the life of one of my finest protégées and that  _cannot_  go unpunished. If it makes you feel any better tell the others that I threatened to tear your throat out,” she finished sarcastically as she withdrew the blade from his neck and stepped away.

He took several raspy breaths as he stood up, noting that Honey had pointedly turned her back on him. She didn’t see him as a threat, and that tiny action cut his pride to ribbons, and he found himself growling.

“Request to be moved to a different unit.” His voice was rough but subdued in spite of his tough wolf act.

“Request denied,” she said flatly, her back still toward him as she sheathed her knife. “You’re relieved of your rank and duty. If you want to rejoin the guard, you can do so through the official channels.”

“You’re fucking joking!” he shouted. “Start over again?!” he growled as he stalked toward her.

Still she didn’t budge to look at him.

“I’m not joking. You’re lucky I don’t convene a court marshal.”

As loosely connected as the guard was, he knew she still had enough sway to end his service.

The matter was delicate, now. She didn’t want their situation to become one of factions. She wanted them to have a united front. Perhaps the blade and threatening  _his_  life had been a bit too much, but she needed to get through to him somehow.

“I’m not a member of your army!” he shouted.

“You don’t have to be under my command for me to convene one!” she fired back angrily as she at last spun on her heels toward him, “For years,  _I_  have been at the head of your organisation! I started  _out_  as a member of the guard! I moved through the ranks and  _I_  got tapped to lead the guard before moving out to join the auxiliary forces. I crawled my way up the ranks, got my ass caught and saved in spying thousands of times till I became the best, and I’ve been fighting this big long war for ages before being moved back here as the head of this wing of COR. Maybe you don’t like the fact I worked with Hopps, maybe you don’t even like me as an individual, but at least if  _I_  don’t command your respect, my experience  _does_!” she finished as she pounded the wall next to her for emphasis.

Groe stood there stiffly, totally and completely wordless for a moment. He looked down before looking back up to meet her eyes.

“Look,” she said intently, “maybe you can’t trust me, and that’s really shitty—but before you decide to leave or do whatever, I want you to really think: Have  _I_  ever done anything that makes it so you can’t trust me? When have I  _ever_  led you astray?” She sighed to herself. “These are  _huge_  stakes we’re playing for. We  _cannot_  be divided. Read a history book once in a while: Divided kingdoms are  _easily_  conquered and  _easily_  fall. It all starts with mistrust. It all starts with factions, can’t you see that?” Her voice was pleading, now.

Groe was stunned at the way the grim taskmaster had faded away. Gone was the female who threw her weight around, now here she was explaining the  _why_  of her emotions.

“Zootopia as a city is in deep shit,” she continued. “There is a creature out there—some  _Human_  or whatever the hell it is—that is trying to take over this city. He doesn’t use magic tricks. He isn’t forcing anybody to do anything. All he and Swinton had to do, along with Bellwether and their cronies, was plant the seeds of fear and mistrust amongst us. Animals killing animals. This isn’t the jungle anymore! It’s the mark of a good propagandist to pit one faction of society against another—rich against poor, prey against pred, male against female. Meanwhile, the  _real_  criminals who stand to profit from all of this stand back while we fight amongst ourselves. So members of the guard are  _talking_  about killing me? And seriously planning to hurt Judy? That’s the kind of infighting that’s going to get us killed while the real enemy sits back and watches us eat each other.”

Groe felt as though he’d been turned to stone.

“You’re letting your emotions persuade you,” she continued. “You’re not looking at everything that I’ve done to try and make Zootopia the place it was meant to be. You’re accusing me of something terrible when all I’m trying to do is keep us together. Once this is over, you can go wherever you want; but you joined the guard because you wanted to fix Zootopia. You wanted to see a Zootopia where prey and pred lived together in peace, right? That can’t happen unless you start right now to try and let go of your anger. Nothing good can come from recrimination. It only serves to embitter. But you have the chance, today—right here, right now, to make peace with Hopps and all the other prey animals out there who’ve hurt you. If you can do that, you will have taken a small step toward a  _truly_  united Zootopia. That’s the moral vision I’m— _we’re_ —fighting for, isn’t it?”

The wolf took several deep breaths in a bid to calm himself. He felt emotion well in his chest.

“I’m sorry,” he said. He meant it.

There was a sincerity in his posture and in his mien that instantly cooled the flames of her anger.

“Me too,” she said stiffly. “I can be . . . a creature of extremes. I was angry, and you didn’t understand what failure could mean. If we don’t save Zootopia, then Bunnyburrow is next. Then Deerbrook. They’ll keep coming after us until there won’t be a place for us to go, don’t you see? The best strategy when it comes to confronting any problem is to stop it as quickly as you can. We need to stop City Hall and whatever else is going on here right now, before its cancer spreads.” She sighed. “Thank you for telling me you’re sorry. And, like I said, I’m sorry, too. Maybe if you convey the same to Hopps— _publicly_ —we can discuss my not mentioning this incident to the chief commander of the guard.”

“And I keep my rank?” he asked carefully.

“And all the perks that go with it,” she nodded curtly. She was struck by a sudden thought. “With one caveat:” she added, “You work with Hopps as a regular member of your group.”

“I won’t take orders from her!” he growled. He couldn’t help it and he stiffened when he realised his mistake. He couldn’t keep his emotions in check when it came to infuriating lapin.

“Pity,” said Honey, “and here I was just thinking you’d learned your lesson.”

“No, wait!” he said before letting out a breathy sigh. “Alright . . .” he sighed again, relenting as he passed a paw over his face. “Alright if . . . if you order it, I’ll work with her.”

“And if I put her in charge of another expedition?” she hooked an eyebrow.

Reluctantly, “I . . . I’ll be correspondent to command.”

“Good,” she said softly and nodded her head. “Make Hopps your first stop. And I want you to be the one who tells the others what’s what. This is yours and their last chance. In fact, convene a meeting. Here. Bring them all together. I want what happens to happen publicly. You  _all_  owe her an apology. And let me tell you, if any one of you had hurt her, it’d’ve been the end of your unit and rank if I didn’t kill you first. If it happens again, you’ll  _all_  be exiled to desk duty for the rest of this fracas, comprendi?”

He nodded slowly. “Comprendo,” he answered.

She took a deep breath before speaking again.

“Well, so, call the meeting. Don’t tell them what it’s about though. Tell Judy to meet me here first, though, before you move on to them. We’re gonna nip this in the bud right fucking now. Go.”

He nodded shakily, feeling uncharacteristically fearful, and strode past her. He had heard how in ancient times, her ancestors had no fear of larger pred animals such as himself and would regularly go after their children. Now as he left her presence, he could feel her eyes on the back of his head and couldn’t help the old fear sinking in the pit of his stomach. He had no choice but to respect her—if he didn’t give her his respect willing, she would take it by force.

She shook her head as she watched him silently walk through the door and close it behind him.

“Oh, Honey,” said a bat hanging from the rafter as the door clicked, “weren’t you a bit too rough on him?”

“No,” she answered. “He threatened Judy’s life. They might all back off if you threaten to kill them,” she joked. “I just lost my temper.”

“But you were never going to kill him.”

“No, just make sure he knew who was boss.”

She smiled to herself but grimly stored away the implications that were brought to her attention: She now knew that there were some, even among the guard, who might secretly be planning to kill her  _and_  the little bunny.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Soildier asked me to pass along a notice to you all here at the end.
> 
> Note from Soildier: Ulfserkr and I really appreciate all of you who have read this story. We're both always thinking about what you guys would like to see. Hearing your words is always something we both love to hear. Speaking of that, we also have some character designs in the works: Remember Hopps, who sits as the cover art? We'd love to hear if you guys want to see more of that stuff. We may even have one of our new friend who just was introduced... Just sayin'. :P
> 
> Let us know what you guys think!


	15. The Lodger

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Things get heated when an unexpected guest shows up and throws a wrench into Honey's plans. How will the others react to the new visitor? Whence does he come and what is he doing here? He seems guarded while at times also seems willing to open up.
> 
> The challenge for everyone going forward is going to be whether to work with him or around him.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Special Acknowledgement: First and foremost I would like to thank my editor Soildier for his help in preparing this chapter.
> 
> Author's Note: You'll all be pleased to hear that I made it into grad school. It's taken a lot of work, but now it seems the hard part is ahead of me. Chapters may not be coming even on a monthly basis given all the prep I have to do and real life necessities which are cutting into my free time, but that's life. I hope you all enjoy this chapter!
> 
> It was honestly easy at first but as revisions came this became a beast to get through. I stayed up till 6:54 my time trying to do some extra grammar and style edits. I hope my suffering has been worth it. XD
> 
> General Statement: As I stated before, I welcome any and all criticism pertaining to the story. If I miss a bit of grammar here or there let me know so I can fix it. If there's something that strikes you a mistake or an error let me know so that I can fix that, too; and yes, I do fix mistakes that are pointed out to me. Speaking from personal experience, nothing can take me out of a story more than a misspelt word or a grammatical mistake—especially if they're too common. Any other comments, questions, or concerns? Feel free to PM me.
> 
> Disclaimer: This is a work of fanfiction and has no claim whatsoever on the characters of Nick Wilde and Judy Hopps who are the sole property of The Walt Disney Company. In no way have I sought money, monetary value, nor profit of any kind for the writing of this story.

* * *

Nick and Judy came down the stairs, reaching the main landing in the main common room.

Their benefactor had disappeared without a trace after his snide comment, and after alerting her parents and siblings as to the situation, they contacted Honey who was already on her way back. Listening to and dealing with her genuine confusion as to what happened had been a small task in itself, but now much of the house—those who were still awake—went outside, making extra rounds in search of the mysterious fox.

Judy held on to Nick for support as they walked out of the main common area. After bidding everyone goodnight, their haggard appearance well observed by everyone, they were excused from the group and went on, intending to get some rest.

They walked down the tribute to their room as quickly as they could.

Nick’s feet were still sore and layered with dirt and dried blood. The first thing he needed was a bath, and some cuddle time with Judy wouldn’t be bad for the bargain.

Her limp seemed to have gotten worse as the chase and the general wear and tear of the entire evening had gone on.

“You need me to carry you?” he asked.

“I can do it.”

“You’re hurt.”

“So’re you!”

“But you can’t carry me,” he smirked. “Otherwise . . .”

She giggled slightly.

He stopped her and bent down to her. “I don’t want you to hurt yourself any worse than you already are.”

“It’s a few steps.”

“I just hate to see you in pain.”

She smiled warmly. “Alright, if it’ll make you feel better.”

She wrapped her arms around his neck and he gently reached down and picked her up. He winced slightly as he got back to his feet and continued on down the hall.

As they stepped out into the smaller common room, they saw a figure seated on the couch. It turned to look at them as they entered.

“Well, aren’t you two cute together?” asked a silver fox with a slight bite in its voice.

Nick and Judy did a double take before they realised it was the selfsame fox who’d saved them.

He was wearing a jacket with a loose-fitting shirt and blue jeans. His look was so disarming, so nonchalant, that they could scarcely recognise him.

“My appearance confuse you?”

“Y-you . . .” trailed Nick.

“Yes, me,” said the fox, raising an eyebrow.

“Wh-what’re you doing here?” Nick stammered.

“Sitting here; waiting for the two of you,” said the fox sternly.

“Uh . . .” started Nick, hesitating.

“Hmm, I thought you were the clever one?” started fox as he saw the both of them becoming more anxious. “I’m not here to hurt either of you: I just  _saved_  you. I will not harm you!”

Neither of them gave an inch.

The fox sighed tiredly, neither of them moving when he suddenly stood and walked over to them. He took Nick by the shoulders.

“Would you lie down on the couch?” he said, as he pulled them forward. Judy huddled into Nick as he was pulled along.

Nick tried to resist the fox’s iron grip but found his will giving way like a blade of grass in a storm. He felt as though he were a naughty child again.

“You have glass in your feet and you’ve both been exposed to the cold for an extraordinarily long time,” said the silver fox.

Nick tried to pull back. “How do y-”

“My abilities are not limited to causing harm. I can sense that the bunny’s hurt her leg, too,” he said.

Judy nodded.

“I need to heal you both. Can’t have anything happening to either of you. Nick, you still have hairline fractures from when you first got here a couple days ago. I know you may be feeling better, but that’s part of why you got winded so quickly. You were pushing your body too hard.”

Nick’s footfalls stung him as they reached the couch. He resisted when the silver fox started pulling at Judy, taking her from his arms somewhat forcefully. Nick reached an arm out but the other fox turned too quickly and could only look over the intruder guardedly as he knelt down to her and placed his paw gently on her thigh.

“It’s here?” asked the fox softly.

His semi-harsh tone startled Judy, but she let it go, saying nothing, as his gentle touch belied it.

By and by, she felt a gentle warming in the muscles in her leg. It spread from the place he touched her, seeming to course through her veins. She felt a surge of energy brighten through her, her body seeming to come alive. She thought she could feel the healing taking place down at the cellular level. After mere seconds, she felt as though she were glowing as her muscles relaxed, an unknown power coursing all through her core as even minor sore spots in her body melted away.

Nick watched as she relaxed on the couch. He wasn’t quite sure what to make of fox before him whose expression seemed tired, perhaps even a little annoyed, while at the same time seemed to care about their wellbeing.

After a few moments, Judy seemed to have perked up immensely while at once seeming totally at rest. The fox removed his paw hesitantly. His movements were almost halting as he looked at Nick and said, “Your turn.”

Nick shrank slightly under the intruder’s gaze but sat down on the couch next to Judy.

“No, you need to lie down,” said the fox.

Nick quirked an eyebrow.

“You have some pretty nasty blows to your ribs and the running you did tonight’s made the problem worse. I need you on your back.”

Judy hopped of the couch to give Nick space.

He stretched out as much as he could and stared up at the ceiling as the silver fox put his paws on him.

“You know, normally I don’t let anyone touch me like this unless I know their name first,” smirked Nick.

“Relax and let me work,” returned the fox.

Nick opened his mouth to speak but closed it as he felt the fox start pulling the glass out of his feet. Nick was rather cut short at the fox’s gentle touch which seemed totally at odds with the way he was treating them. The intruder did a quick yet meticulous job, getting every shard out of his foot. A moment later, when Nick tried to get up, he felt himself being pushed back down and held there. He made to struggle before he felt a warmth spread throughout his body, emanating from the intruder’s paws, easing the pain he felt there.

“W-we have to call you something,” Nick murmured as he felt his breaths become less and less painful.

“Patience. Answers will come, in time.”

“Where do you come from?” asked Judy as she looked at the fox.

“A place that no longer exists.”

“Do we get to know why you were looking for us?”

The fox seemed perplexed for a moment at the fact that they seemed to know he was looking for him before nodding to himself.

“Yes,” he started, “I was caught on camera. I remember that. So, you saw that, huh?” he asked.

Nick had his eyes closed as he felt the healing heat spread throughout his body. Still, he nodded at the fox’s question.

“Then why did you come to the city? How did you know I wasn’t trying to kill you?”

“We weren’t there looking for you,” replied Judy. “We were on a rescue mission to save the mice. They were all run off into the water, anyway,” said Judy tremblingly as the awful memory was brought to mind. She collected herself and continued. “And . . . we had to collect Honey’s dead drops.”

The fox furrowed his brow as he worked. “Honey?”

“She’s a badger who’s running an operation to take back the city. She wanted us to help her.”

The fox nodded to himself. “We’ll see about that when she gets back.”

“Huh?” asked Judy.

The fox abruptly removed his paws from Nick. “I’m gonna go scope out the perimeter—get the lay of the land. I want the two of you to stay inside,” he said.

Nick sat up, somewhat groggy but feeling one hundred percent better. “Why?” he asked.

“Because you don’t know what dangers’re out there. You can’t go throwing yourselves into bad situations.”

“Nothing could have followed us out here that quickly,” said Judy.

The fox only barked out a mirthless laugh. “Do not test fate, Little Bunny. Just do as I say and keep yourselves inside. This place has poor enough security as it is.”

“It’s not  _that_  bad,” said Judy.

“Let me ask you something,” started the fox as he turned toward the pair, “if I went into the main common room right now and introduced myself to the bunnies in there, would they assume that I was just another one of the preds staying here?”

“I guess, b-”

“Then it’s bad security. If you’re telling me that no one’d realise that I’m a stranger here, then this place has poor security.”

A moment later, he was gone. Vanished into thin air.

Nick and Judy looked at each other for a moment before she went over to him. They hugged for a moment before resting on the couch.

They lay there together for God-knows-how-long before they heard the familiar voices of Honey and her teams filtering down the hallway toward them along with a multitude of other voices.

They lay back for as long as they could as they heard the voices come nearer.

-.-.-.-

Honey sighed to herself as she led the group down the hall. After stopping to greet those who’d waited up for them, she asked them for help in bringing in as many mice as they could.

About half of the mice had been brought along with them while the other half had been taken with Jack, intending to find a place near another port that could take them.

Jack had to split rather quickly, anyway, in order to get back to the group of Happy Towners he was leading back to Bunnyburrow the next day.

Fangmeyer, Wolford, Clawhauser, and Finnick all went up along with Judy’s parents, Jasper and Daisy, as well as a few others.

Meanwhile, Honey and the others took care to carry in those mice they could on long stretchers. They were going to set them in one of the many lesser common spaces before going back up for more.

She nearly stopped, however, when she saw Nick and Judy lying on the couch together, almost asleep. What surprised her more than anything was the fact that they seemed perfectly fine: Nick, who’d been in particularly bad shape the last time she’d seen him, now seemed perfectly recuperated as he took a lazy rest. God knew  _she_  was going to be up for hours, her nerves were so shot.

As she and Arborel set down a stretcher of mice, she called to them.

“Hey, you two!” she barked, watching with satisfaction as they bolted up, “I need you both up and running. We’re bringing in the mice.”

“How’d you get them all here?” asked Judy sleepily.

“Just half of them,” she said. “Jack called in a couple of favours from some mammals he knew in Deerbrook. They met us at the station with the amount of help we needed taking them all.”

Nick nodded as he slid Judy off him. “We’ll be right up,” he said as he stood.

“Get a shirt on, first,” said Honey. “It’s a bit cold out.”

Before he got to his room, Honey, who had been about to walk back out into the hall, stopped and turned around to face Nick as Fangmeyer and Clawhauser brought in another stretcher.

“By the way, where’s our new friend?” the badger asked.

“He said he was out checking the perimeter,” replied Nick.

“Nobody saw him as we pulled up,” Honey frowned.

“I have a feeling you’d only be able to see him if he wanted to be seen,” Judy said as she walked up to the badger. “It seems like he likes to be . . . private,” she finished.

Honey cocked an eyebrow but said nothing as she and Judy continued down the hall

-.-.-.-

The task of bringing in and caring for the mice was long. Essentially half a city’s worth of mice was brought down into the downstairs area. Several offshoot common areas were quickly dedicated to the task of housing them.

The Hopps’ generosity knew no bounds when the horror of what had taken place in Little Rodentia was related to those who were there. As many of the older bunnies as could be found were woken up with a plea for help in caring for them. Old mattresses, blankets, and pillows were brought up from storage areas, dusted and cleaned as best they could be and sent to rooms and other living spaces. Entire wings were soon packed as more and more arrove.

It took hours into the night to complete everything, and even then, Wilde still had to hold quick meetings with one group of siblings at a time, giving each of them a crash course in caring for hypothermic patients. Rosters were passed out in order to take names from those who could speak. Several bunnies were assigned to look after and care for each ward, as Wilde now referred to the makeshift hospital wings.

In the meantime, several of the Hopps residents were sending out texts to those in the neighbouring community for assistance. Those mice most critically injured were quickly evaluated and sent with Jack’s teams to the hospital in town.

It was positively exhausting for everybody involved. Wilde was more used to individual care when it was necessary; however, he now found himself in the position of what was essentially the chief of medicine. So much of what was happening needed to happen quickly and Honey quickly indicated that Wilde was to be in charge if there were a question over what to do with a particular mammal. Bonnie was put in charge of where to put the mice. In order make sure that things ran smoothly, Honey gathered the two of them and insisted that they check in with each other every fifteen minutes to ensure that everyone was on the same page.

Communication was key, the badger insisted, in matters of life and death.

Gradually, the hum of padding feet and calling voices died down to hushed whispers and echoing steps.

Honey rubbed her eyes as she looked through the list of names and the rooms they were assigned in.

She passed another paw over her face and let out a sigh as Wilde strode up to her.

“What’s up with Hopps?”

Honey sucked in a deep breath before leaning back in her chair. She wiped her paw down her face again and fixed Wilde with a serious expression.

“Did you know that they threatened to kill Judy? Her own team?”

Wilde stood stock still and felt as though his feet were trying to plummet him through the Earth.

“What?” he asked. But his incredulous response was belied by the stiffness in his posture and the paling of his ears. She read him like a book.

“You must have heard something. You, after all, were the one who threw her suicide attempt back in her face.”

“I didn’t hear about  _that_ ,” said Wilde as he regarded her. “I mean, I didn’t hear that anybody was threatening to kill her,” he clarified.

She looked up at him quizzically. He was telling the truth about that, but then why did he seems so nervous unless . . . .

Something clicked in her mind.

“Ensign Zach was gracious enough to take your place on the team,” she started. “Tell me . . . were you  _all_  plotting to abandon Judy if she landed on your team?”

He didn’t even have to answer: the whole story was written on his face—To abandon Hopps had been a plot from the very start. Had Arborel and his team known, too? or was it something that had only been spoken of amongst like-minded individuals? It seemed to Honey that at least two of the members of Hopps’ team had only been talked into the mutiny  _after_  leaving the boats.

Honey let out a small, feigned gasp of wonder. “And to think, I thought I could trust you. Ensign Zach is a friend of Daisy’s, Judy’s sister. He decided to stay behind with her. Tell me, if you had gone with them instead of Zach, would you have just left her there? Would you have gone off in another group of three and just completely abandoned her?”

Wilde let out a breath he’d been holding in. After a brief pause, “I don’t know,” he said honestly.

He looked down shamefully.

“I guess I didn’t know how seriously to take it or how far they’d go,” he continued.

“Did you know that there are genuine plots out there to kill her?” she asked.

Wilde barked out a laugh. “No, but it’s not surprising.”

“And about plots to kill me?”

Now he looked genuinely surprised.

“Jack too,” she said as she looked away.

He seemed at a genuine loss as she stared off blankly to the side.

“What if one of the plotters had actually been among them? What if the threat had become more than a threat and they had actually killed her? What if I, myself, had been targeted and killed? And Jack?” She looked at him, expecting an answer.

He, however, was at a loss for words.

“One thing leads to another,” she finished.

“It honestly just seemed like a prank. Like, what would be the harm in leaving her behind or even not having her in charge of a majority pred team?” he asked. He knew the moment he’d spoken he’d said the exact wrong thing.

“‘What’s the harm?’“ she asked back, looking absolutely dumbfounded. “The harm? Is what happened tonight,” she said with a tone of finality. “You wanted to know what would happen without her? Well, now you know.”

“Not like this,” he said. “I didn’t think things would end up this way with half the team getting shot at.” There was no defence. He was convicted by his conscience, he knew.

Honey let out another tired sigh. “You know, I put Hopps on Groe’s team permanently. You’re going to be working with her quite a bit in the future.”

Wilde didn’t argue but merely nodded his head.

Honey had been expecting some pushback but nodded gratefully when he said nothing. She sat back and combed her paws through the fur on her head.

“That’s one stroke of luck: a new interloper saved Red and Carrots,” she said. “I haven’t had much of a chance, what with all of what’s been going on,” she murmured.

“You think you oughtta go find him?” asked Wilde.

“I don’t even know if it’s worth the trouble. From what Red told me of the fight—or what he saw of it—the fox—yeah, he’s another fox,” she said as she looked at Wilde, rolling her eyes, “he could easily kill us if he wanted to.”

“Well,” started Wilde as he shifted uncomfortably, “ _that’s_  comforting . . . .”

“Wilde, you just gotta roll with the punches. With as shitty as this night has been and as awful as the operation went—no thanks to you, I just found out,” she said as she pointedly looked at him, not at all ready to let it go, merely tabling the discussion until a time when she wasn’t tired, “I’m just ready to accept any stroke of luck that comes our way. Maybe this is it,” she said, raising her eyebrows.

She stood up from the table. “I’m gonna get myself some tea,” she said as she sauntered to the steps.

-.-.-.-

She came down the stairs about fifteen minutes later and made a sharp turn, deciding she wanted to be away from Wilde’s company for the moment.

She preferred a quieter setting with no one around and made her way to the smaller commons that held Nick and Judy’s room along with everyone else’s.

She halted abruptly at the entrance to the commons when she saw a silver fox sitting there staring at her.

She let out a small laugh and brought her emotions under swift control.

“So, are you the fox that saved Red and Carrots?”

“What do you think?” he asked. He expression was emotionless.

Honey quirked an eyebrow as she came toward the centre of the room. The silver fox before her seemed enigmatic and dark. She noted the way he sat, reclined on one of the chairs and yet he was as guarded as she was, and she couldn’t tell precisely why: If what Red had told her in passing as to his formidable abilities were true, she had absolutely no leverage over him. So then why . . . ?

She sat down on a sofa opposite him and tried to take his measure. He was lean and built, seemingly confident in his position—rarely had she ever met someone who seemed as certain of his own reality, apart from Jack and herself, as he seemed to be. She would set that aside for now, however: She had no real idea how to judge him so her estimation of the male was premature, she decided. Instead, she wondered whether she might probe to get something out of him. He would be an asset to anyone seeking to gain a leg up in the struggle she and the other preds of the city were in.

“Don’t bother,” he said simply.

She looked at him confused.

“Trying to convince me to become one of your soldiers.”

“I . . . I’m not,” she said as she looked at him, genuinely bemused. That hadn’t been her intention.

He looked at her confused expression for a moment before continuing. “You want to know if you can use me in your fight,” he stated.

She gave him that one: Anybody in her position would be wanting to know if they could use someone of his alleged power on their side. He must have known that.

“I have been around too long to not see someone who is a master at manipulation,” he said unamused.

She bristled internally. “You don’t have to fight along side us if you don’t want to,” she said cautiously. “But you can’t fault me for wondering if you wouldn’t be amenable,” she continued as she sipped her tea. “Any strategist would want to gain an advantage when it comes to any future battles,” she finished.

“You’re an opportunist,” he stated.

“Born of necessity,” she concluded for him. “You’re correct there.” His assessment of her was leaving her somewhat wrong-footed, as though he were trying to catch her out. No matter, she thought. If he wanted transparency, she could give him that. “Red—the fox you saved—saw your talents relatively clearly, and I largely believe his account. Well, I have to—there’s no way they could’ve gotten here so quickly without some sort of assistance.”

“You don’t think he was telling the truth?” he said, interrupting her train of thought.

“I’ve been having to doubt what I thought I knew about reality more and more. It’s still as incredible to me as ever, even though I’m essentially being forced to accept it.” She took another sip of tea, letting the warmth spread through her. She felt herself slacken ever so slightly into the seat behind her.

“I can feel how tense you are,” he stated. “Stop your attempts at trying to control the situation.”

Honey kept her expression impassive and shrugged.

 _‘So,’_  she pondered,  _’he’s honed when it comes to reading individuals.’_

“If you wanted to kill me, I’d be dead right now,” she returned casually.

“I’m not in the habit of harming mammals just because I have the option.”

She let out a short sigh and nodded. Setting that aside, she continued. “Do you mind at least telling my why you’re here with me, now?”

He regarded her. “I have come to you to ask you cease endangering the ones you call Red and Carrots.”

She frowned and set her tea down on the coffee table.

Suddenly he stood up and strode forward.

Honey felt fear spike through her, yet refused to let it show in her face or body.

“You may fight this war however you wish, but leave Red and Carrots out of it,” he stated flatly. Before she could say anything he continued, “The reasons for it are outside of your understanding.”

A bolt of anger flashed through; again, however, she refused to let it show.

“What do you mean?” she asked, unable to keep a hint of annoyance out of her voice.

“I do not have the luxury of time to tutor you, Little Badger.”

“Are you trying to insult me?” she asked.

“It  _is_  an insult when your first thoughts are on how to use me for your own advantage.”

“As I was going to say before,” she said as she looked up at his face, “Red told me about how skilled you are—you’re also excellent at reading individuals. It would surprise me to learn that someone—a fighter such as yourself—had never taken advantage of an opportunity to defeat your enemy. Fighting dirty is necessary at times. But you mistake me if you think that I don’t care about those whom I lead. I prefer to work by consensus.”

“Little Badger, you fail to listen. This isn’t a war game.”

She rolled her eyes slightly.

“I  _am_  a war game,” she said with a slight laugh in her voice.

“And yet here you are, hiding underground.”

“You’re here with me,” she pointed out. “But, I didn’t come here to trade barbs. You’ve opened up several questions.”

“For all your hiding, Little Badger, I can still see your fear.”

“You don’t even know who I am,” she said. “I’ll tell you anything you want to know about me and our operation that’s pertinent, but don’t pretend like you know me.”

The fox went back and sat down. “I’ve already seen all I’ve needed to: A grieving widow who lost her only child. I don’t need to be a psychic to know that that’s led you down the path of vengeance you’re on,” he finished.

She swallowed and clenched her teeth, feeling as though a stone were sinking in the pit of her stomach.

“How did you find that out?” she asked, maintaining a casual voice and mien, though she’d be lying if she said her mind weren’t racing. Her body postured had stiffened in a way that she was certain he’d noticed. “Where did you get your information?”

“From you,” he answered. “You’ve been unguarded in what you keep to the surface of your thoughts. Your pain is very clear to me, even the way you walk tells of life changing sorrows. I’m surprised you keep that memory so close to you,” he said as he leant forward. There was a hint of something in his eyes. Perhaps . . . sympathy?

“It’s always close to me,” she said as she picked up her tea again. “It’s what keeps me going.”

“So everything you do is for them?” he said.

“And for those around me. So many of us have suffered so much and lost a lot. I swore to myself that I would never let it happen to anyone ever again if it meant I had to lie, cheat, steal, or kill. It would be worth it if it would end the horror.”

“Don’t let it lead you to error,” he censured.

“I don’t, but as much as I appreciate a democratic approach to things, you must know as well as I do that it’s better to have a central vision when it comes to any goal involving multiple branches. I’m trying to be that hub. At least in this corner of our operation.”

“And yet you’re so afraid when it comes to the future. Afraid of me.”

“I fear you the way any sane person would fear a weapon they don’t understand,” she stated.

“I’m not a weapon, just a simple fox. But now I just need one thing from you . . .” he trailed.

“Keep Red and Carrots out of the fight?” she asked, unable to suppress hooking her eyebrow. “I’m not sure why I should do that without some reason,” she said.

She watched his face darken.

“Leave them alone,” he stated. “Do as I say and I may help you with any issues you may have concerning your stagnant war, but only if I have your full cooperation.”

“What’s your stake in this war?” she asked, deciding to probe around Nick and Judy for the moment.

“None,” he said flatly. “I’m after the human.”

“But then, surely-”

“Our two goals are distinct, I can assure you. You want a united Zootopia-”

“And you don’t?”

He eyed her carefully. “Don’t interrupt me.”

She couldn’t help rolling her eyes but said nothing.

“Nevertheless, as I was going to say,” he paused as he looked at her, “was that while you want a united Zootopia, my own goal is to take out the human. The fact that my end goal aids you in yours is incidental. As I said, I have no stake in your war.”

She looked at him curiously, now—the only emotion she betrayed. “You say you have no stake in this war, but you might have one after all. At least on some level. Both Red and Carrots have shown an interest in joining this battle, and I have no interest in stopping them. That would necessarily draw you in, it seems. Even if I were to forbid them, can you honestly tell me that they seem like the type to follow orders?” She smirked fondly, but not at him.

His eyes only focused their sight on her; their light penetrating her. “Do you think that they’ll somehow escape a master spy’s watchful eye?”

She took another sip as she regarded his expression. He was dead set on making sure that Red and Carrots were kept away and was imposing himself on her to ensure she’d do so, but why?

“Carrots told me of the universe she was from,” she said as she smiled down at her tea, doing her best to ignore his eyes. “She told me . . . that she defied the direct orders of her commander and went in search of twelve missing mammals. All predators.”

She paused again. “She told me that she and Red, but for some quick thinking, were nearly killed on at least two occasions. Their impulsivity,” she concluded, “is bound to get them into trouble.” She left off, looking in the direction of their room. “You’re playing for high stakes, and so I have some ability to keep the pair of them homebound out of respect for the fact that they must figure into your designs somehow; however, the two of them are wildcards in many ways, and I think you know that. Do you think even  _I_  could keep them from going on a mission if they really wanted to?”

He took a deep breath. “I guess that would depend on how badly you want to keep the human from destroying this world.”

She looked back at him, trying to clear her mind of what she was feeling. He wasn’t understanding her. Perhaps a direct approach was needed? She frowned as she paused in thought before continuing. “I guess what I’m really asking is . . . what is the harm in letting them fight if they want to? Why should I forbid them? Better they do so under my supervision than to sneak onto the field. I won’t use them as pawns against you-” she amended quickly, “-but I must point out that you do have some stake in our battle, don’t you? At least, you do if the two of them are in it.”

He said nothing, his eyes probing her as though trying to assess her. She could see a gleam in his eyes, and she set down her cup and leant forward.

She regarded him calmly and earnestly. “I need to know: what is it about them that means they need special protection?”

He sat back and said nothing.

In response, she casually raised her eyebrows and sat back as he replied. “I’ll be the one to worry about their reckless impulses. As for the rest of your question, the reasons are irrelevant. You of all mammals should know the importance of information. Would you trust me with critical knowledge about Wilde or Hopps?”

“Even if I didn’t,” she replied, her brow furrowed as she eyed him appraisingly, “I suspect you already know it. I may be a master spy, but even I cannot be everywhere at once. I need eyes and ears everywhere to help me with my priorities. If you want me to drop some of my responsibilities and focus in on just the two of them and direct the attentions of my wing of this organisation to focus on keeping them out of the way, I would like to know why. You don’t even need to go into detail. Even if you just told me you liked them a lot I would at least have  _something_.”

“You wouldn’t understand even if I told you,” he said. “Helping me is helping yourself,” he said calmly.

 _‘Well,’_  thought Honey sarcastically,  _’he certainly doesn’t seem like a team player.’_

She sighed as she tried to piece things together: His attitude suggested he was used to giving orders, but what did  _that_  suggest . . . ?

She picked up her tea and took another sip as she tried to figure him out: He was used to working alone: that was for sure. On the other paw, she could tell that he hadn’t  _always_  done so. He was used to commanding and demanding things from his subordinates—she could tell at least that much from his language.

And yet on the third paw, he was listening to her, and though his expressions and demeanour suggested he didn’t want to hear her—and indeed, he didn’t have to: he could just kill her and take control—the fact that he was doing so meant that on some level he was willing to bargain. To meet in the middle.

She took another sip of tea before attempting another run at explaining herself.

“Let me try to give you an analogy,” she said as she set down her cup. “If I knew nothing about a weapon and someone asked me to stay away from it and I asked why, all that mammal would have to say to me is, ‘Because if you touch it and you don’t know what you’re doing you could kill yourself.’ I don’t need to know how a bomb works to know that it’s dangerous enough to stay away from. That’s all I’m asking for. I’m not asking you why you need them or what you intend to do with them: just why I need to take them out of the field.”

“Just keep them protected-”

“What if we get invaded?” she interrupted, ignoring the look he gave her. She held up a pleading paw and continued. “That’s something that’s likely to happen in the following days while we try to piece together the intel we have. We’re as geared up as we can be but the city obviously outmatches us in terms of weapons. How crucial are Red and Carrots to what you’re doing? How protected do they need to be if worse comes to worse?”

She was careful to indicate that it wasn’t a matter of  _whether_  she would protect them but  _how_  to protect them. Ideally, of course, she wanted to shelter all those who worked with her as best she could, but with incomplete intelligence, failures were sure to happen. She could feel him probing her—she let him see the debacle with her Judy and the cull. She was not immune to error.

“I’m only mortal,” she said as she let him sense the emotions behind every failure she’d ever had. She championed on in their memory and had never forgotten those whom she’d lost. Red and Carrots were powerful assets to the fox before her, she knew, but there were different levels of security for a reason depending on the sensitivity of the asset.

While at once he was confusing her with his demand, she also respected it—at least in the sense that she understood what it was like to be on a mission and need to keep certain assets safe and private.

“It’s nothing you wouldn’t have found out about, anyway,” she said regarding what she let him see. Her mind turned to his request. “I can see that Red and Carrots are important to whatever you’re doing. And what you’re doing affects me and my cause—the death of the Human would be a great help to all of us. I have as much interest in seeing you succeed as you do, looking at it that way. To that end, you can count on my help. But I can sense a few things, too. You have failed, at least once, at keeping your subordinates safe. It’s why you’re being so insistent with Red and Carrots, now. Was it because they didn’t know what they were getting into? Taking it a step further, do you think it’s safe to let me, ‘the ignorant little badger’ wander around blindly?”

He let out a sigh. “Your ignorance is a gift,” he said softly, his voice rough. “If you knew the fate the human has in store for this world, you’d follow your dear Judy in an attempt to end your life. There are far worse things awaiting you than death.”

She took a slow breath as he continued.

“I know the atrocities you’ve all suffered. I may seem something that cares nothing for the pain soaked into the very earth of this land, but if that were true we wouldn’t be speaking.” He gazed at the ground, seemingly in thought. Sighing again, he looked back at the unbreakable soul before him. “If Red and Carrots go, I go. We all have our weaknesses. If they die, I leave this universe and the human and his kind win. Now you understand their importance. And that, by the way, is the most simplistic I can explain it.”

Her thoughts were turning now as she regarded the fox. “How bad  _can_  things get?” she asked as her minded drifted. “What happens to the rest of us if you fail?”

She saw the look in his eyes and took a deep breath. “It’s game over for all of us, isn’t it?” she breathed.

He said nothing for a moment. His look was hard, though it lacked the ire from before. As much as he may have hated to admit it, there was a way about her that was more coaxing than he had anticipated. He searched the surface of her mind for any hint of an agenda and found nothing save what he already knew and what she had told him.

“Things . . . can get so much worse.” He paused to emphasise the gravity of the situation before continuing. “It would end life as you know it. In fact, it wouldn’t be life at all.” He leant forward as his eyes locked with hers. “But I won’t fail,” he stated. It was a fact. “If you just keep them safe, the worst will never happen. Will you do as I ask?”

Honey nodded carefully. “I’ll do what I can,” she said. The one thing she knew about being mortal was that dying was easy. There were so many things that could go wrong. Forgetting for the moment  _why_  Nick’s death would force this magical fox to leave—she had a feeling the answer was too involved to be discussed at the moment—she had to wonder why on Earth anything mortal would be a good choice for the responsibility of . . .  _tying?_  . . . the silver fox to this reality.

The better strategy would be to have him take out the Human as quickly as possible while they still had some element of surprise on their side. The Human must be aware of the fox’s presence, she reasoned—how could anyone in the city working for the government have  _not_  seen the video? They had managed a surprise attack a few hours ago that had sent the city scrambling which was a strike in favour of another attack. The city’s forces had been stretched too thin: if they struck now, they might still have some dash of luck on their side. The fox only needed to take out  _one figure_.  _And_  he had the ability to teleport. His job could be done in a flash and it would take the pressure off of her and her operations.

She stood up and paced as she thought to herself before finally speaking. “If we were able to give you the Human’s location—if we were able to discover it—would that be enough for you? Red and Carrots both gave me a separate account of how you teleported them over 211 miles. What’s to prevent you from catching him alone—with no crowd ‘round him—and ending his presence in the city at once? There’d still be the matter of the fighting to do, sure: but your part would be done,” she said as she eyed him carefully.

Even before he spoke, she could see from his expression that he’d been following her train of thought. It was unnerving that he had a sense of what she was going to say before she said it.

“If it were that easy, why would we be having this conversation?” he asked, his amusement at her expense aggravating her. “The easy answer is: I’m being blocked from warping space around the city. Unless you’re a scientist, it’s useless to explain how, but I’m just currently not able to. Sometimes you have to do things the old-fashioned way.”

She huffed slightly, her irritation visible. “Be patient with me: You’ve introduced me to a lot and I have to find my footing. It’s not just me I’m worried about, you understand—I have to ask these questions because I wouldn’t be doing my job if I didn’t,” she said as her mask crept up again. “I’m not worried about working with you, but I’m trying to figure out a game plan. If you want an analogy, it’s like I just went from playing checkers to chess. The moves are more intricate now, and there are rules I don’t know about.”

She sat down again in deep thought. She closed her eyes and bent forward to take her cup and saucer. She sipped some tea as she absorbed the new information concerning Nick and Judy and the fox’s relationship to them. Her thoughts came to her like out of dark water.

“When I was first learning to play chess,” she said, her voice smooth from the warm liquid, “I thought, as everyone did, that the king was the most powerful piece—that it could do the most. It surprises almost everyone the first time to find out that he only moves one square at a time and that it’s really the queen who has the most power to move about the board. That’s what I have in front of me now,” she mused. “Nick and Judy are the king on my chessboard, and even though they’re seemingly the least powerful, without them the game’s over.”

He folded his arms. “And I’m the queen now?”

Honey swore she could see the slightest inkling of a smirk on his face but it quickly disappeared.

A light suddenly flashed in her eyes and she looked at the fox eagerly as the pieces fell together in her mind.

“That means that the human has a king too, right? He has someone here that he needs to protect as much as you need me to protect Nick and Judy!” She stood up and looked at him. “Am I right?”

He seemed to be enjoying her thought process. “I believe you can guess who his ‘king’ is. There is only one mammal in that city who wants its total subjugation just as badly. Care to take a guess?”

She didn’t have to think long. “I have two who might be, actually—but one is more likely than the other. Bellwether, who was recently mayor; and Swinton, who’s mayor now. Of the two of them, I suspect Swinton is the more likely of the pair, and I say that because things really got underway when she got into power. That brings me to another question, my queen,” she started, “Why fight the Human directly? You can bet your bottom dollar that he’s going to be after Nick and Judy to eliminate you. If he knows how important they are to you—and I’m afraid he does since the whole world basically has you on tape asking for them—are you going to be going after Swinton or Bellwether, in return?”

Rolling his eyes at her queen reference, he answered, “I’m not a god. I do not possess the power of omnipotence. It’s Swinton, by the way,” he clarified. “Why can’t I go after her? The short answer is that the board isn’t set, yet. That’s where you come in,” he paused as she eyed him over her cup. “I need you and your band of rebels to put up a good fight. Warring through an entire city would take a lot of energy, leaving me at too great a disadvantage to assure my victory when I finally get to him. Your forces would distract his—including Swinton—and give me the time to end him. After that, the threat to your world would only come from yourselves.”

She hadn’t missed the glimpse of emotion on his face. He was hiding a tender side. A side he needed to protect. Just like she did.

She nodded as she listened to him but mentally thought back on Swinton’s rise to power and all the things leading up to it. “When it came to Swinton,” she started softly, “it was . . . like a kind of ramping up. If I had to guess, the Human has been here for quite a while.”

The fox nodded. “He’s been consolidating his power for over fifty years. You’ve never known a life different than this, but it wasn’t always this way. We can fix this aberration his presence has created-”

“Does he only have one king?” she asked, almost as an aside. Her mind was trying to absorb as much information as it could. Why did this fox have two? she wondered.

“Red is my only ‘king,’“ he answered. “Both of us only have one, and Bellwether isn’t a ‘king.’“

She nodded as she took another sip. She watched him sit down. He had more than a hint of arrogance about him but it was tempered by a strain of patience. It seemed he was amenable to a lighter touch. It was very nearly killing her to have to have the conversation in such a manner, but he outranked her in terms of power and skill, and that bothered her. Since the day her husband and later her kit had been killed, she had struggled to restrain her emotions and be in control. Part of that need for control and stability had been what had led her to be as good of a leader as she was.

If it were a war or a battle she had to contemplate, it would be one thing. Now, the future was looking murky to her—so many things were not simply out of her control but beyond her ken. There was no way for her to navigate this situation: A race of beings—and their enemy—who were having some sort of inter-dimensional battle and this world, this planet, of the millions of billions out there, was caught in the middle.

It was a torment in itself to squash her anxiety, and she drank deeply of the tea, frowning as she neared the end of the cup. Her frown deepened as an eerie thought crept into her mind.

“You both have kings,” she started slowly, “you seem to know a lot about each other, and you’re both in disguise while on Earth—I’m guessing you’re not really a fox and he’s not really a . . . whatever the fuck he is,” she laughed uncomfortably as she looked at him. She let him see the disturbing question which slowly smouldered in her mind:

_Are you . . . the same species . . . ?_

Under normal circumstances, she might have made some effort to hide her thoughts, but she wanted everything as out in the open as she could get it. She knew that the fox had a temper—that he was a creature of extremes just like her. She had to hope that he realised that this question would come up at some point—it was impossible that someone wouldn’t put the pieces together like she was.

“There is no  _disguise_. I’m just a fox,” he replied darkly. “I’m  _nothing_  like him!” he answered, leaving no room for debate. After a beat, “That’s all I am,” he said calmly.

She let her gaze fall to the cup in her paws as she thought. She knew he could see her doubts buzzing around her like flies. She trusted him mostly because she had little choice in the matter. Then again, he could kill her in an instant but wasn’t doing so—she could trust him not to kill her or any of them right now, at least. After all, she reasoned, why refrain from harming them if he were really trying to hurt them? But on the other paw, why was he lying about his association? She would never deny being a badger—a member of her own species—unless . . . unless what? she wondered. Her Judy had renounced her status as a member of the upper class—as a prey animal with privileges—because of the atrocities that were committed by her whole class. Could it be . . . that a similar thing had happened with him and his race?

A conclusion formed in her mind. “You know what they want to do to this planet,” she said. “You know . . . because you’ve seen him,” she said, referring to the Human, “and the rest of them do it. Haven’t you?” she spoke softly. She didn’t expect an answer. Hopps had wanted to kill herself after  _one_  cull. She knew that the “fox” before her must have seen far worse.

He was silent for a moment.

“Yes,” he started slowly, “I’ve seen it. Been present for it once before.” He paused for a moment. No emotional outburst was needed to feel the tension that flooded the room. His next words were almost sad: “Things that no creature deserves.” This was the first time he didn’t meet her gaze.

She saw the seemingly despondent look on his face. Compared to this fox, Nick had nothing on him in terms of emotional walls. No one would’ve been able to stay sane through the unspoken horrors she imagined without some psychological barrier. He deliberately closed himself off, like an abused child trying not to let himself feel  _anything_.

He turned his gaze to her, reading her doubts and fears and questions on the surface of her mind. “Not today, little badger,” he huffed. “The rest of your answers will come in time,” he finished. He couldn’t help reiterating, “As long as Red and Carrots are safe, so will your cause.” He knew he’d made his point already, and though it grated on Honey that he was being so insistent, she knew that he had to nail it down. And that, too, told her something about him:

He’d fucked up in the past. At some point, for some reason, he made a mistake—he had failed to drive home the sensitivity of . . . something—some piece of information had failed to get through to someone or someones, and it had cost him. She knew it . . . because it had happened to her, too.

She quickly downed her tea. “I could go for a drink right about now,” she said. “Something stronger.”

The silver fox just looked at her. “I need you to understand: If Nick dies, I have to leave; and if I have to leave, it will be a long and suffering death for this planet. Worse than the shock collars you had to wear in the city.”

She nodded as anxiety washed over her. But at least now she had some idea of what to do. The duplicate Judy and Nick needed to be extraordinarily careful. Their location needed to be secret. There were many ways to accomplish what she was after, and one of them might be to simply have this magic fox spirit them away to some secret place even she wouldn’t be able to find them. She knew that Bunnyburrow was likely to be hit soon, and she knew that they were probably going to be underprepared. It might be best if she sent them away to Deerbrook.

But it was late, and sleep was taking her.

“Forget the drink,” she said as she stood, “I’m going to bed.” She smirked internally: Not likely, she thought grimly.

She slowly strode to her room, cup and saucer in paw—as her head pounded from a need for sleep and from worry. She heard a popping sound as she reached the door to her room and turned to see him standing there, holding a dark object. She didn’t have enough time to analyze it before he chucked it her.

She caught it deftly as he said, “Hope you enjoy it.”

She glanced down to see it was a beer.

“A fennec fox I met when I was outside dared me to try taking one,” he said. “You might want to be on the lookout if you see him.” A devilish grin stretched on his face.

She laughed, looking down to get a better look at the beverage.

She looked back up a moment later to see he was already gone.

-.-.-.-

Some time later, the silver fox lay reclining on one of the couches in the darkened common room, staring up at the ceiling. Yet even from his stationary position, he was able to let his mind’s eye swing like a pendulum about the residence, keeping watch over things.

He saw the way Nick and Judy huddled together. He saw the way her nose twitched as she buried her face in Nick’s chest.

The fox clenched his teeth slightly as he tried to get a sense of the well-being of everyone in the house.

He felt the moans of fear and anger, terror and illness as he swept through the hospital wing.

And by and by, he felt a presence down the hall and opened his eyes to see the fragile-looking creature. A young rabbit doe was eyeing him from the mouth of the tribute.

There was something about her that made him smirk.

“I intrigue you,” he stated. It wasn’t a question.

The thoughts buzzing around her head zoomed and zipped so quickly he was scarcely able to read them all before they vanished back into the depths.

She stood there for a bit, a mixture of fear, awe, and curiosity on her face as she regarded him. She nodded her head slightly.

“Kinda’,” she whispered.

He could sense her fear coming off of her in waves.

Her mind was in a jumble, and as she stood there, she tried to glean some information as to his nature by simply looking at him.

The old adage  _rumor volat_  held true—, especially in  _this_  household. By the time the story had reached her, it was that this fox, who now lay reclining on the sofa, had saved her sister’s doppelgänger and in the process had taken out nearly half of the city in the process.

She felt as though she were treading on holy ground almost—as though she were walking up to the sanctuary of the church or some other place she wasn’t supposed to be. It didn’t feel right to be this close to him, and yet at the same time she couldn’t help but feel a sense of awe.

The story was unbelievable, of course—as in she literally did not believe that. What she did know for certain was that she had saved the doubles of her sister Judy and her mate. That in itself was enough to make him a kind of hero in her eyes.

“I’m not a god,” he said flatly.

His words had an effect on her, as though breaking some sort of spell over her—and suddenly, he felt far more approachable than he was before.

She came toward him, stepping carefully—slowly.

He felt her hesitancy, sensing that she was genuinely curious about him and yet at once terribly afraid. There was a high likelihood that she’d heard a vastly exaggerated version of the events that had taken place in the alley. She stopped again and regarded him from what she felt was a safe distance.

“You should go back to bed, Little One,” he murmured as he took his gaze from her and looked back up at the ceiling.

When she didn’t move, he could feel a sense of expectancy from her. “What? Are you expecting a magic trick?” He spoke with slight amusement in his voice.

She was terrified of him, he thought, and yet here she was, a little fifteen-year-old, curious enough of him to take a look. While he had no real interest in speaking with her, he also didn’t want her to be afraid of him—not to the point where she saw him as something threatening.

He sighed tiredly. “I have no interest in hurting you or anyone else here. I promise.”

“Can I . . . um . . . can I come closer?” she asked. It seemed as though she were afraid he’d bite her. When he thought about it, she probably was.

She came forward slowly and eventually stopped in front of him, remaining silent as she looked at him. In a swift move, he lifted her up and set her on the couch beside him. The small female bunny giving him a squeak of surprise from the sudden action.

He then rested his head back on the couch and closed his eyes once more. His plan was to let the little bunny get all the curiosity out of her system, not realising it was working too well. He felt the feeling of presence near the side of his face, opening his eyes to see the small bunny mere inches away, looking at his features in awe.

“I know bunnies aren’t known for having normal boundaries, but do you think this a bit much?” He saw her ears droop a bit at the slight rebuke. He decided to change the subject. “What’s your name?” he asked at last.

“Fay,” she said after a beat. “It’s short for Fayenella.”

He smirked slightly. “That’s a tall name for a small little thing like you.”

She appeared to relax only slightly. “That’s what everyone says.”

He looked at her face and noticed the old tear tracks that had left their path down her fur.

“You’ve been crying,” he said.

She nodded.

“You were worried about your sister.” It was a statement.

She nodded. “Was it true that you saved her? My sister’s . . . my sister’s bodyguard?” she asked.

He looked at her confused for a moment before brushing her statement aside.

“I saved . . . the one who saved the one who’s like your sister, yes.”

“Is what they said true?” she asked tentatively.

“What?” he asked, taking a look into her thoughts, “That I blew up half of Zootopia? No, but . . . well, never mind. I don’t want to scare you.”

“Is what my sister said about the city true? Is it really . . . I mean, did they really kill preds?” she asked.

He nodded gravely. “If that’s what your sister told you, it’s true. That place has the stench of death reeking from its soul.”

The look of worry in her face deepened and he felt himself regretting his words—he had to remember he wasn’t talking to one of these hardened mammals.

“I just don’t get it,” she said before he could speak. “It feels like . . . everything’s the exact opposite of what I always thought it was. Good is bad, bad is good; pure is impure, impure is pure . . . . It’s just been . . . a lot,” she finished vaguely.

Her world had been thrown into chaos. She had no idea what to think anymore. Where Honey had been so certain of the world she was living in, this bunny was the opposite—lacking almost all direction.

He huffed to himself.  _’She’s a teen.’_

The fox gave her a stern look, sensing that she was looking to him, for some strange reason, as to the right direction. “Right and wrong are two lines that never cross, Little One. You’ve grown up with preds all around you, haven’t you?” he asked.

She nodded. “Yeah but . . . but they’re different. The city . . . it’s so different.”

The fox nodded understandingly. “They grew up in a different, segregated environment. That doesn’t mean that they don’t value the things that you value or that they don’t want the things that you want. There are bound to be differences, of course, but everyone values peace—or most right thinking mammals, anyway. They want to punish evil and reward good as much as the mammals here do. They’re different, of course. You don’t get too many bears around here, but . . . I think you’ll find that regardless of how large or small a pred may be . . . we all want to live together while minding our own business.” he finished.

“Is it true you saved my sister’s bodyguard?” she asked, referring to Judy.

“Why did you save, them, by the way? I mean, there were other’s out there, like my sister, but you left her and saved the body doubles instead.”

The fox looked puzzled for a moment and scanned her thoughts quickly and found himself barking out a laugh. “So  _that’s_  what she told you, eh?”

She nodded slightly in confusion.

“Why I saved them, well, that’s a long story. But . . .” he trailed as he looked at her soft features, “I  _can_  tell you that they’re going to help me—she and her mate—rid this planet of a great evil.”

“In the city? You mean . . . you’ll get rid of the mammals who murdered . . . who murdered . . .” she trailed off as she remembered Hopps’ gruesome description of the cull.

A dark look came over his face, and for a moment, she seemed afraid.

“You can count on me to do everything within my power to stop those who would inflict that kind of harm on another mammal,” he said softly.

She was doubtful, he could see, but she wanted to trust him so badly. She wanted his reassurance, but she had been painted such a bleak picture.

At last, she nodded hesitantly. “I trust you,” she said softly.

He let out a sigh and sat up. “You should get some rest. I’ll be up, keeping watch.”

She smiled shyly and got up from her seat, jumping off the couch.

“Goodnight,” she whispered before nodding to him and turning back down the hall.

 _‘Sleep well,’_  he thought as he heard her footsteps fade away.

-.-.-.-

Judy forgot she’d set her alarm for seven in the morning. She scrambled for her phone, untangling herself from the arms and legs that held her. Nick yawned as she reached for the phone and shut if off. She rubbed her eyes, her head positively throbbing, and promptly fell back down onto the bed. The events of last night, especially the work she’d had to do bringing in stretcher after stretcher of mice had been positively exhausting. This on top of the fact that they’d been up almost all night doing it.

Nick gently caressed her side and seemed to be falling back to sleep. Judy was nearly there when she heard a knock at the door along with Honey’s voice.

“I heard your alarm go off, I know you’re up.”

Judy sighed miserably and huddled into the warm and soft comfort of her bed.

“I know you wanna be in bed, but even I have to be up right now. Jack just texted me that he’s almost here. He’s gonna need help unloading equipment.”

Judy moaned and smothered her face while Nick grunted next to her. After a beat, Judy jumped up and started for the door.

She opened it to see the badger smiling down at her.

“Nice to see you up, Morning Glory,” Honey smiled. “Ready to start the day?”

“Not really. Give me a century and maybe we will be.”

“Trust me,” smiled Honey, “I know how you feel.”

“Just give us a moment to change,” replied Judy. “We’ll be up in a minute.”

Honey reached in along the wall and turned on the room light and listened as Nick moaned in pain as the light flashed on.

The badger suddenly looked very pensive as she stared at Nick.

“So,” she drew out, “it wasn’t my imagination.”

“What wasn’t?” asked Judy as Nick sat up and stretched.

“Red’s completely healed,” said Honey.

Judy turned back to follow the badger gaze before returning her gaze to Honey’s pensive face.

“This is all to do with our new friend?” asked Honey.

Judy nodded slowly as she looked back at Nick.

“He healed both of us,” said Nick as he stood up and stretched.

“What . . . uh . . .” Honey seemed uncharacteristically at a loss for words. “What do you think about him?”

Judy cocked an eyebrow. “I don’t really know.”

“I mean . . . what’s your sense of his personality?”

“I dunno . . . mysterious?” replied Judy with slight hesitation.

“Distant,” said Nick.

“Like he’s trying to be funny but doesn’t know what boundaries are.”

“Bossy.”

“Weird.”

“Alright,” said Honey, stopping their assessment. “I’m just trying to get a general sense of him.”

“We heard you up talking last night,” said Nick.

Honey raised her eyebrows. “And did you hear anything either he or I said?”

Judy shook her head. “No. Nick kept asking me if I could hear, and I couldn’t. Besides, we just woke up now and again, but you guys must’ve been talking for a while. Why’re you asking us?”

“Just looking for a second opinion,” she said. She breathed out heavily. “Well, go ahead and get ready. I’m gonna need you guys up as quick as you can be.”

Nick nodded and closed his eyes as he yawned again.

Honey left as Judy closed the door behind her.

“Well, there’s no rest for the weary,” said Judy as she walked to the closet to search for something to wear.

-.-.-.-

The silver fox looked across the nearly flat landscape. It was prairie land. Here and there in the distance, he could spot the warrens of far off neighbours. The space was so wide and open, he was reminded of the kind of freedom for which he longed but had been denied in nearly every aspect of his life. He had to admire the view, though. Who couldn’t?

He’d watched the kits and young adults marched off to school early. He’d remained out of sight as he’d seen them leave, in his mind concentrating on the shield he wanted to erect around the place. He needed to be careful of how much power he expended at once, but he was determined to do what he could.

Even now, he could sense an approaching enemy. Just one, as far as he knew.

What surprised him was the general sense he got from the creature, whatever it was—its spirit seemed to be at peace. A contradiction in terms, as far as the fox knew; which only told him that the enemy—whoever it was—had extraordinary discipline.

But it was of little consequence, he knew. There wasn’t a soul in this world that would be able to defeat him.

He smiled cockily as he felt the presence grow nearer.

_‘Bring it on.’_

-.-.-.-

The older kits had been given the day off and charged with assisting Dr. Wilde in the makeshift hospital wing.

Fay listened as he gave each of her brothers and sisters their tasks for the day, and she smiled to herself when he dubbed them his unofficial candy stripers. Fortunately, earlier in the morning, nurses in the family—those who had a day off—willingly volunteered their services and came in for the day.

There had been a bit of a kerfuffle at the beginning when they discovered a fox, of all creatures, in charge of patient care by default. They became particularly emotional when they learned that he hadn’t completed his degree and had earned his credentials from a diploma mill online.

Fay tuned out the noisy chatter and looked around as the argument continued. She vaguely heard Dr. Wilde admit that if they could get a fully accredited doctor in, that would be better for all involved but drifted off in thought as an odd sense came over her.

She was certain she was being watched. Or at least, for a moment she had been. Earlier, she’d been looking for the silver fox with whom she’d spoken the other night. She hadn’t seen him earlier, and only after innocently inquiring as to his whereabouts discovered that he hadn’t been spotted by anybody that morning.

He seemed to have a gentle way about him, though that wasn’t the impression she’d gotten from either of the body doubles—Red and Carrots. He had a terrible bedside manner, they’d said; although that brought an interesting thought to mind: Fay had seen the way Red had been walking yesterday: Slowly and carefully. Today, he seemed completely healed even now as she watched him and Carrots walk paw-in-paw up the stairs to aid the others when it came time to help Honey and the other’s unload the convoy that was headed toward them.

If he could do that with Red—if he could heal him of such harsh injuries—why couldn’t he do the same with the mice? She had meant to find him and ask him but he seemed to have vanished.

She turned back as she heard her brothers calling her name to come help with the nursing duties.

-.-.-.-

“Any sign of him?” asked Nick as he walked up to Honey.

The badger shook her head no. “I haven’t seen him. I trust he’s doing whatever it is he does.”

“You trust him?” asked Nick.

The badger hesitated as she looked down the wide and open driveway. She’d be able to see the convoy coming a good mile down the road, the landscape was so flat.

“Well,” she said after a moment, “I’m not particularly fond of it, but he’s forced our hands. If I were in the position to force his compliance for a background check or a probationary period, I would have done it. I don’t have the ability to fight him on anything.”

“That doesn’t really inspire confidence,” said Nick.

“I know, but it’s the best I have. I can’t exactly make him do anything. The best I’ve got to go on at the moment is the fact that he could kill us but he hasn’t.”

“That doesn’t mea-”

“I know,” bit Honey, sharply. “I trust that he told me the truth last night, though—that you and Judy, or just you, really, were important to his plans.”

“I don’t think I like the sound of that,” said Nick as they saw the convoy coming up the road.

“Neither do I,” said Honey as she pushed away from the side of the house and waved at the coming trucks.

They honked in response.

“We just have to make do with the situation as we have it.”

“He could have all kinds of plans for us and for those around us and just not be telling us about them.”

“He could be . . . but I have a sense that his intentions are good. Last night, that which he  _did_  reveal to me, had me feeling a bit better about the situation. Besides, he’s not taking over basic operations or occupying a political chair in any capacity as near as I can tell. The way he operates is relatively clandestine but it’s fine for now. One thing I’ll say is that either you or Judy would likely have more pull with him than I could.”

“Then why would he have told you so much last night?”

She shrugged. “He probably figures that things are easier if you don’t have to fight against everybody all the time. He wasn’t originally going to say anything to me. A lot of what he told me was only mentioned after I’d guessed it anyway. Or at least the gist of it. At the very least he knows I’m not a moron. He’s used to acting alone, though, and that’s something that could get him into trouble if it hasn’t already.”

“I don’t think he worries about that kind of stuff.”

She raised her eyebrows. “You’d be surprised how long things tend to stick with people like him. It’s not as like he just woke up and decided to close himself off—like most living creatures, events in his life made him that way. He indicated that he’d been traumatised, at least in some fashion, in the past, though I don’t think he’d ever admit something like that.”

“What makes you think that.”

She chuffed a laugh. “‘Cause I’m the same way. And I know you are, too. I saw you put up the mask yesterday with Judy. You let me crack the surface, but I know there’s more to you than meets the eye.”

Nick’s eyebrows creased in annoyance. “I think it’s safe to say that  _all_  preds have something in their past that haunts them.”

“It’s how you deal with it that makes you stronger or weaker in the following years. You made the wrong choice, from what you told me. Then again, so did I.”

“And what choice was that?” asked Nick, now scowling.

“You chose to put on a mask and play the part that everyone expected of you. That was one way to go. There’s another way I learned in recent years.”

Nick looked confused. “I’ll bite: what should I have done instead?”

She smiled to herself as the trucks stopped a ways from the drive to minimise clutter. “You should’ve become invisible,” she answered as she stepped away from the house and walked down to the trucks before breaking into a jog.

“Let the other’s know the trucks are here!” she called back.

He stood there dumbfounded for a moment before shaking his head to get her confusing message out of his mind. He quickly turned and went back inside.

-.-.-.-

The silver fox watched as the mammals milled about the trucks, working swiftly to unload as much as they could, quickly. Years of training had taught him patience. The traitor was down below. He’d sensed the vile creature’s presence the moment he’d stepped on the property—that is, it was at that moment that he was truly able to hone in on him.

He watched as the betrayer milled about, blending in with all the rest of them. No one seemed any the wiser.

The fox pondered: there was no way he’d be able to explain his thoughts about the betrayer to the others—not without losing his credibility. From how things appeared from his vantage point, the traitor seemed to have managed to get into a position of some power in the group below.

The fox couldn’t help wondering at how it could be that this being could hide its thoughts so well. He pressed into the mammal’s mind as far as he dare go without alerting it to his presence and saw nothing that would indicate any malevolence, deliberate or otherwise. Nick and Judy, Finnic, Clawhauser, Wolford, and Fangmeyer, along with several others, were down below, unloading as much as they could.

He watched as several of them took in some very heavy objects while the traitor stayed behind, unloading some smaller crates from the back of one of the trucks.

This was the chance the fox had been waiting for. It had only been a matter of minutes and now look: there was no crowd round the creature. He could take care of the problem before any questions were asked.

For Fay, for Nick, for Judy—he had to act before the traitor had a chance to interfere with his plans and harm those whom he’d sworn to protect.

Jumping lightly off the roof, he made his way to the convoy.

-.-.-.-

Jack grunted as he lifted a box from the back of the truck. He turned and jumped slightly, surprised when he saw a silver fox walking toward him. He’d remembered what Honey had told him about the newest addition but was still surprised that he hadn’t heard a thing as the fox stalked up to him. Jack nodded curtly, setting the box down before turn in to get another box.

“I could use the help,” he said, a slight strain in his voice as he started to draw another load out.

The blow to the side of his head took him completely by surprise. He grunted as he hit the ground, sliding a ways, and quickly twisted around to see the fox shimmer.

Jack was stunned to see the fox suddenly clad in armour, glinting in the morning sun. The fox drew forth a blade, the sound hissing as it swiped through the air.

In a flash, Jack had his gun out. He aimed it at the fox just as the creature jumped at him. Jack sucked in a quick breath rolled, getting to his feet as he saw the fox slash at him. The bunny flipped back three times, annoyed that with each jump, the fox got closer, giving no quarter and no chance to get any good distance between them.

Jack felt the blade swipe across his chest, and he fell to the ground. In held his breath as he reflexively aimed his weapon and shot the fox’s paw as he prepared for another strike.

Jack only barely got a chance to see the blade go flying before he quickly rolled beneath the truck.

Now, he heard the voices of several others as they came running. The gunshot had alerted them to the trouble and he heard them tearing out the front door and dashing down the drive.

Jack heard the clicks as his team members unsaftied their guns.

A moment later, he heard Honey’s voice shouting at everyone to stand down.

“Are you crazy?!” shouted Jack as he crawled beneath the vehicle. “The fucking thing’s trying to kill me! Who the fuck is this guy?!”

He quickly shuffled out to the other side and found the fox there, staring at him menacingly, the creature’s eyes a shade that struck fear in his heart.

Jack turned and ran as fast as he could.

A backbreaking blow launched him forward at a speed that had him scraping himself badly when he planted into the ground.

“God!” he shouted as pain tore through his body. He flipped onto his side in time to see the creature coming toward him and raised its paw, blade poised.

“Wh-what the fuck?!” shouted Jack weakly as he held up his arms to block the Elder’s next blows.

A shot rang out, and Jack saw droplets of blood fly from the silver fox’s paw.

“I told you to stand down!” shouted the badger at the team member who’d fired.

Jack heard as Honey’s voice came nearer.

“What the fuck do you want from me?!” shouted another voice. “He’s gonna fuckin’ kill ‘im! Are you out of your fucking mind?! What the fuck do you want me to do, just let ‘im die?!”

Jack cringed slightly as he saw the creature turn and growl at whomever pulled the trigger.

Several other shots rang out. Jack could only look on as the fox dodged every round, twisting and stepping perfectly as each round was about to impact.

“Enough!” shouted the creature at last: The fox waved his paw, and Jack saw and heard the weapons fall with heavy thuds from the paws of his surrounding team members. He heard whacks as bodies all around him hit the ground along with accompanying shouts and cries for help, Honey’s voice among them as she shouted for the crazy mammal to let them up and to stop what he was doing.

Jack breathed heavily as the fox summoned his blade. He watched as it just flew into the creature’s paw.

Jack shouted again in agony, his back twisting painfully as the creature dragged him forward through some invisible force.

“Jack!” he heard Honey’s voice laced with worry and fear as she called out to him. “Stop what you’re doing!” she shouted at the fox.

The creature took no heed and was on top of the rabbit in an instant.

Jack groaned and watched as the fox gazed down at him. Jack returned the look, his gaze defiant.

The fox drew back his paw and aimed his blade but stilled when a flash of grey moved between them.

“Stop!” shouted a resounding voice.

“Judy!” shouted Nick. “Get away from them!”

Jack tilted his head up to see Judy lying across him.

“Stop,” she said again, breathing heavily as she turned her head, catching the fox’s gaze out of the corner of her eye.

Before he passed out, Jack couldn’t help but smile at the fact that at least he’d have the company of a beautiful female before he died.

-.-.-.-

The fox growled as he looked down at Judy as she lay across the traitor.

“Get away from him, Judy!” he growled fiercely.

She jerked at his words but stared him down, her violet eyes piercing him. “No,” she said tremblingly.

“Judy!” came another shrieking voice.

The silver fox turned, stiffening when he saw Fay looking at him.

Her paws covered her mouth as she let out a terrified scream as she looked at him, tears streaming down her face as she took several steps back.

Wordlessly, he lowered his blade and got off the traitor below him. He motioned with his paw again, and suddenly the others, Honey included, found themselves able to move.

“Everybody!” shouted Honey before anyone could do anything, “I want you all to stand down! Holster your weapons and carry on with your work!”

“Honey!” shouted one of the agents, “we can’t just-”

“Did you just see what I saw?!” shouted Honey. “Do you think there’s anything you can do?”

“You told us he meant no harm!” shouted another.

“So I did, so I did . . .” she said tersely. “And I hope to God he has a good reason for all of this. Everybody,  _everybody_ , just calm the fuck down for a second. We’re gonna figure this out,” she said to the teams. “I promise you. But first, we have a lot of work to do and the fight is over. You can all carry on. Fay,” she said to the crying bunny, “I need you to snap out of it for a second,” she finished as she came toward her. “You need to go back to the house and find Dr. Wilde. Let him know that there’s been an injury and we need him here as quickly as possible, can you do that?”

She spoke calmly to the young lady, hoping that a strong focus would keep her from falling apart. Fay nodded quickly and dashed off as fast as she could.

“Jack . . .” said another team member, “is he gonna be okay?” he asked worriedly as he knelt by his friend.

“I’m sure he will be. In time.” She spoke firmly in a voice that brooked no argument.

Slowly, the others begrudgingly went back to unloading the trucks. Honey let out a sigh of relief she didn’t know she’d been holding. There was nothing any of them could do to the uninvited guest that wouldn’t aggravate an already-tense situation.

She walked over to where the fox still stood looking down at Judy and Jack as the little bunny worked to try and stabilise him as well as she could.

“You know,” said Honey, “that your eyes glow when you’re angry?”

Immediately, his head snapped up and the light behind his gaze faded.

“Judy,” said the badger, “I think Nick wants to see you.”

Judy looked between the two of them and slowly arose, breaking into a run as she saw Nick dashing toward her.

The silver fox watched them embrace tightly. He turned to see Honey giving him a hard stare.

“Do I need to ask?” she said with little hint of emotion.

He could see she was boiling inside.

“He’s a double agent,” he said. His words were certain.

She looked at him incredulously, her mouth agape. “You maybe wanna back that the fuck up and give me a better explanation?”

His eyes narrowed. “Watch your words! These are circumstances beyond your knowledge.”

“Where the hell is all this coming from?” she returned. “You promised me you meant no harm! To me or to those who were working for me. Last night you said-”

“I haven’t broken our agreement,” he said. “What you just witnessed was myself honouring and putting into action our agreement.”

“Stop it,” she said. “I’m trying to work with you and all you’re giving me is a condescending attitude,” she said as she fought through a wave of genuine anger. “Do you get how doing what you did looked to everyone around you? What did you think was gonna happen? What on Earth did you expect my or anyone else’s reaction was gonna be when we found out you—what, were you gonna kill him? “

“I would’ve expected you to not let your emotions cloud your judgement. For you to remain calm.”

“Big surprise,” she started. “Newsflash: When you don’t tell anyone what you’re thinking they can’t just pluck out your rationale out of thin air!”

The fox stifled a growl. “You need to pull yourself together.”

Honey was about to respond when she realised what had happened. She hadn’t been able to tell at first since his face was so perpetually inexpressive, but his attitude told her what she wanted to know: He’d put up his wall again.

He’d put his wall up again, and she should have been able to see it in his eyes. She wondered what she could say to him to have him speak to her usefully again. She caught the sharp look in his eyes when he scanned her thoughts.

He chuffed. “Forget it.”

“You beat up someone who was no match for you! You don’t see that as being bullyish? You don’t see that as needing an explanation? You  _told_  me that I didn’t understand, and I  _don’t_ , but I  _want_  to!”

He looked away.

“You told me he was a traitor,” she fished again, “please, tell me what you mean by that.”

After a beat, “He’s been working for the human.” It was a statement of fact.

“Okay . . .” trailed Honey as she tried to silence her mind’s objections, “how do you know that?”

“Those close to the human are tainted.”

Honey just stared at him.

“You see?” he asked, a smug smirk on his face, “I knew you wouldn’t understand.”

Honey felt at a loss. “I . . . need more to go on. There are going to be questions. I vouched for you and without any evidence to prove what you’re saying it’s going to look like I let a fucking monster into the house.”

“That sounds distinctively like a problem you guaranteed you could handle.”

“It’ll be your problem, too, if I get my ass handed to me because of this. I promised you last night that I would keep Red and Carrots out of the fight: Do you think that you’d be able to elicit such a promise from anybody here if you allowed yourself to come across as an unfeeling asshole?”

“You really think I am?”

“I didn’t say I did! But for all your high point powers of perception, you’re not taking the time to really read people. You’re deliberately pushing me and everyone else away.” She leant in close, “And even  _I_  can tell that you’re trying to punish yourself for something. Or maybe you’re doing it because you’re running away from something,” she finished in a whisper as Fay and some of her siblings came toward them.

They both watched as the siblings from the house moved the broken buck onto a stretcher which they then carried into the house.

Honey covered her mouth as the severity of Jack’s injuries sank in on her. Adrenaline kept her from thinking on it too much, though.

“Just, whatever you’re doing, stop being so obtuse. I want us all to be working together. And I get that you’re not used to that, but you’re going to have to condescend to us if that’s what it takes.”

“Understand that I never take an action without cause, Little Badger.”

She visibly bristled at the name but remained silent.

“I’m sorry, but that’s what you are to me.”

She shook her head, “You were so certain that I wouldn’t understand what was going on that you didn’t even bother to tell me what was happening.”

“Knowing this would’ve been your reaction. Yes.”

“ _After_  you beat him up. You don’t think that I needed to know of a possibly dangerous creature on the premises?”

“One that was your friend and who you would’ve attempted to shield?”

“Would I have? I haven’t had a problem taking down internal spies before. Even those considered friends. And what if he’d tried to kill everyone the moment he got out of the truck?”

“We both know that Jack isn’t a  _normal_  friend. This is someone you’d save above everyone but maybe Hopps.” He looked away and added, “Plus, he wasn’t powerful enough to kill everyone as soon he got off the truck.”

“I wouldn’t have covered for him if he were really passing on information to that monster,” Honey replied earnestly. “Maybe it would have hurt, but if you really know everything about me, you know that the one thing I would never do is help the city,” she finished seriously.

“You still don’t understand the reality behind my Nick and Judy, yet you pretend to understand what lies behind Jack?” The fox was beyond tired of trying to explain things to this badger. “Did you hold his hand every day? How would you know he wasn’t playing you?” he asked. The fox’s expression became contemplative. “Isn’t your opinion that only Jack would rival you in terms of espionage?”

The badger was thoughtful for a moment before shaking her head doubtfully. “I . . . . Okay, but even if you’re right . . . I need something to show for it. He’s not the one who has to prove his innocence, you’re the one who needs to prove his guilt.”

She imagined that if Jack were guilty there would have been a paper trail of some kind. Something in his whereabouts, some smoking gun.

“Was he dangerous at all? You said he was working for the Human. Maybe I would have wanted to capture him and interrogate him as to what information he’d passed on.”

“Risking harm for knowledge you already have?”

“How do  _I_  know that? Don’t make those decisions for me. Please. There’s only so much condescension I can take at a time.”

She turned from him and slowly walked back to the house.

“Please give me some time to smooth things over with everybody inside before you show up,” she said.

She turned to see that he’d already gone.

-.-.-.-

Honey sat glumly in the main common room. She rubbed her eyes wearily as she waited for news on Jack.

She’d sent the member’s of Jack’s team away to help in escorting the coming flood of Happy Towners. Many of the exiled were heading straight to the centre of the city to receive food and medicine that was needed in the wake of the attack, only two days ago, when the two doppelgängers had shown up. And  _him_ , she thought crossly as her mind wandered back to the fox.

He’d made himself scarce, just as she’d asked him. She had no idea what to make of the situation. In the midst of the fight and in the immediate aftermath, she hadn’t given much thought to the fox’s actions but now felt ashamed of herself. She felt as though she’d let herself be suckered into his insistence that he was on a mission. She felt as though she had connected with him on that point. He’d warmed up to her, she thought; but now that sentiment conflicted with the present situation.

There was no smoothing this out.

He might have killed one of her closest friends. It was unforgivable. And to deny her an explanation? That was right out.

She trusted Jack with her life. She couldn’t imagine that he were a traitor.

Nevertheless, she had taken pains to investigate. She had spent the rest of that morning and early afternoon pouring over as many of the dead drops’ files as she could for any clue as to whether the bunny were guilty of anything. She made phone calls and sent texts to others in the organisation, asking for information without letting on that it was Jack whom she was investigating. They hadn’t gotten back to her, but so far, she found nothing untoward, nothing strange, nothing at odds with what she would have expected from an individual in Jack’s position.

Of course, without knowing the location of the Human, there was no way for her to really know whether they’d had any contact or not. But then again, Jack’s forces were always with him or near him in  _some_  regard: Why would Jack have been tainted and not them? Judy seemed to have been tainted by the Human for a time, but it had worn off: perhaps it had worn off his troops, too?

She couldn’t prove his innocence, but she also couldn’t prove his guilt. It was on this strange interloper to prove Jack’s guilt: Last time she checked, you didn’t have to prove your innocence in a court of law.

Which brought her back to the silver fox.

She felt cornered: Blades of grass had no choice but to yield before the scythe. The fox to whom she’d spoken last night was like a bull in a china shop—his actions could cause a lot of damage and have a lot of unintended fallout. Heaven knew that when she was on a mission, she was just like him: Nothing could deter her from its objective. The difference was, her obstacles were mortal and she fought against them on a level playing field.

“Honey?” came a voice that startled her out of her reverie.

She looked up to see a doctor—an armadillo—looking down at her. Next to her stood Wilde, a haggard look on his face.

She cursed herself for not having paid more attention. As she looked up at them, she tried to read them: The news was all bad, as far as she could see.

She sighed and let herself sink down into the cushion. “Let me have it,” she said flatly as she looked at them.

“Well . . . it’s not good,” said the armadillo, shaking his head slightly.

“Out with it! Just say it!” she shouted, her patience at its end. “‘Give to a gracious message a host of tongues, but let ill tidings tell themselves when they be felt,’“ she said, quoting Shakespeare.

“We need to do more tests,” said Wilde, breathing out as he spoke in a bid to get it all out at once, “but it looks like his back was very badly damaged. We know it’s broken but we don’t know just how bad it is yet. At best, we’re looking at anywhere from six months to a year for recovery time.”

“And at worst?” she asked sighing.

“At worst, he dies from the massive internal damage he sustained. Or he dies from an infection while in our care. There’s so much that can go wrong. Hell, he could end up walking out of here and end up dying because of something that happened today.”

Honey felt her head start to pound dully as a cold numbness spread through her.

And suddenly, all the awful memories of the past were right in front of her again.

She stood up slowly and felt herself sway slightly.

“Thank you for telling me,” she said flatly.

She turned and made for the tribute that led to her room. She needed to be alone.

As she continued on, she saw Red and Carrots coming up from the opposite direction.

She heard them call out to her as she passed by but she continued on, refusing to hear them.

She stepped out into the lesser common area and found there, sitting on the couch, the fox from before.

Her nerves blew up in a volcano of anger, sadness, and fury as she regarded him.

She got a handle on her composure, however, and simply looked at him.

“I’m sorry for your pain. It wasn’t my intention to hurt you. I feel that pain every day,” he said. “If I hadn’t taken that action you may not even be here to feel the rage you have at me.”

She was unable to keep her fists from balling in spite of the calm look on her face. What could she do to him? She wanted to break his neck. She wanted to beat him until he felt as badly as she did right at that moment. She wanted to make him suffer.

But instead, she stood there as his words were clouded out by the roar of anger in her mind.

She felt entirely powerless and it made her want to lash out. The creature before her had critically harmed her best friend, and there was nothing she could do about it. He got to lay back on the couch while things were falling apart all around her.

There was no venting she could do, nothing she could say to make one hair white or black.

After a pause, she let out a breath, “You can’t stay here.”

He merely looked at her calmly.

“I’m not going anywhere,” he said.

“Then the base of operations is moving,” she returned. “There’s no way anyone from Jack’s team—or me for that matter—is going to be able to stomach the sight of you. I don’t wanna see you.”

He shrugged. “You’re free to do what you wish, but Carrots and Red stay.”

“That’s up to them.”

Now his gaze quirked. “We have a deal.”

“To keep them safe, yes; but I’m not gonna stop them if they want to come with us. Wanna ask them and see who they feel safer with?”

She heard Nick and Judy come up behind her.

“You can trust me to keep you safe,” he said to the couple standing behind the badger.

“I don’t trust you at all right now,” replied Honey. She clenched her teeth: it seemed as though he expected her to accept his presence and his actions. Or at least tolerate them in the name of his working for the greater good.

But she didn’t see him as good. Not anymore.

“Examine the logic: why would I go through all of this trouble to just kill you anyway?” he asked.

“Probably because you don’t see us as enemies. Who knows when that’s likely to change?”

“That bunny is part of the force that you hate,” he replied. I don’t go around harming creatures for no reason.”

“Really? Because it looks like you did.”

“He’s been working for the human.”

“Which you haven’t proven.”

“I can sense it.”

“Prove it.”

“The only physical way was to let him harm you,” he said. “Do you hate me so much that you won’t acknowledge my point?”

“I’d acknowledge it if it were really true. Hear me out: You said that Jack was severely tainted by the Human? Are there any ways to achieve such a taint without direct contact, because so far I can’t find any evidence that they’ve been anywhere near each other. He’s always been with his branch of the guard—why only him and not the others? Is the Human telepathic? Can he contact him that way?”

He looked thoughtful for a moment. “I cannot say. There are many possibilities, but at some point, Jack took a mark that signifies him as the human’s follower. It had to have been done through physical contact.”

It was like talking to a brick wall. Fury burnt through her mind like a wildfire. She wanted to tear the building down.

Instead, she turned around and walked out. “I want you scarce when I come back,” she said as she pushed by Nick and Judy. “I’ll be making arrangements to move in the meantime.”

“W-wait!” shouted Nick, “You’re not seriously thinking of moving the whole headquarters are you?”

She stopped and looked at him. “The mice have to stay, and so can the Happy Towners and anyone else: really, that’s up to your parents,” she said as she looked to Judy. “Your parents have been gracious enough to let us stay in their home, and this was looking like a sort of ideal base, but he’s threatening the unity of our organisation. Members of Jack’s team are bound to try and take revenge on him and it’s not going to end well. For everyone’s safety, we’re leaving.”

Nick nodded silently. “How bad off is Jack?” he asked.

Honey took a deep breath as she turned to fully face them. “It’s not looking good,” she said, unable to keep herself from gulping back a tremor of sorrow. “His back’s broken and he’s just . . . got a lot of stuff wrong with him. He . . . probably won’t make it. The doctors said that if this didn’t get him, stuff stemming from this down the line probably would.”

“What?” said Nick, looking wholly sympathetic.

Judy turned from Honey and looked at the silver fox behind her. “Can’t you do something? Can’t you heal him?” she asked imploringly.

“Judy,” he started, “he was working for the human. He would have killed you and your mate over there given half the chance.”

“No he wouldn’t have,” stated Honey.

He chuffed. “Fool.”

“Monster.”

The fox locked his gaze with hers. She stared right back.

“But,” started Nick in a bid to interrupt, “can’t you just-”

“I’m sorry, Nick,” said the fox, “if I did that then it’s the same effect as going and burning the down the burrows, myself.”

Honey took in a deep breath and let it out slowly as anger and rage surged through her.

She turned from them as she heard Nick and Judy pleading behind her. Honey made her way up the stairs, down the hall, and out the door. She took a centring breath as she headed down the drive, needing to be alone. Needing to get a hold of herself before  _she_  did something stupid.

What she need was her punching bag.

She took a deep breath and looked out at the quiet landscape before her. The air was cold, nearing winter. Far afield, she could see the hothouses glimmering. The sun’s odd glow gave the odd impression that it was morning even though it was afternoon.

She turned from it to look at the wide expanse before her that stretched seemingly from horizon to horizon, far of buildings and woodland outcrops being an occasional pause on the flatland.

She felt herself relax as she stepped out, needing to get out. She walked down the drive and took in the area around her. Things seemed so quiet. There was the hum of the city that she was used to, a persistent whistling in her ears. Now, that background noise had quieted.

She focused on the silence and let her feelings bleed away as she walked.

She took a calming breath and reassured herself that things would be okay. Somehow, things would be okay.

-.-.-.-

The panther lay strapped to an operating table. He had no idea where he was or what he was doing there. The last thing he could remember was a fire tearing through his apartment building. The fearful sight that had met him outside had infuriated him: Happy Town had been on fire. They were under attack. The worse had come to worse and the terrifying situation that every predator in Happy Town had suspected had finally come true.

He remembered rushing into a building to try and help one of his neighbours and being crushed by a beam.

He’d awoken once before in a room that looked like a hospital ward, but everything was somehow different. A nurse had come in and given him a sedative which had put him back to sleep after he demanded to know where he was.

Now, he looked around himself and tried to make sense of his dark surroundings.

He could tell that there was something in the room with him. He tried to keep his breathing low and his heart rate even, but in spite of his best efforts, he could feel a kind of darkness emanating from whatever was there in the room, sitting right in the corner, and just out of his line of sight.

Suddenly, he heard that grating sound of a chair sliding on the linoleum floor. He heard the sound of footsteps.

The panther fought against his restraints but found himself powerless against his bonds.

When he saw the beings face, he screamed and began with greater fear and terror to try and tear himself from the gurney.

“Shhh,” started the creature. “Relax, I’m not here to hurt you, you know.”

The panther breathed heavily, not taking his eyes from the strange creature’s face even as its eyes glowed with hints of red.

He watched as the creature picked up a funnel from a tray next to the gurney.

“Can’t run the risk of you biting my fingers off,” said the creature as he brought the funnel over and pushed it into the creature’s mouth.

The panther shook his head, trying to rid himself of the thing, but not before the strange creature poured a phial full of some crimson liquid down his throat. The vile taste had him gagging as he swallowed it.

He gasped for air as he felt his lungs close up and his eyes bulge as intense pain worked its way down and through his system. He screamed and jerked against his restraints as he begged for air. He couldn’t breathe and his heart was pounding faster and faster till he felt as though it were about to burst.

As his minded faded into unconsciousness, he could hear the creature beside him whispering to him softly. “Now be prepared. When you awaken, you’ll be just like me.”

And then his world was gone.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Message from Soildier: So, it took days of revisions but we finally got through the hell that was this chapter. We both stayed up till six in the morning just wanting to finalize it. We completely overhauled the dialogue for this chapter. GROANS


	16. Doubt

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Vital clues and suspicions abound as our heroes try to make sense of the shocking revelation that Jack has been working for the Human all along! What will happen going forward? How will the team go on when their organisation is falling apart at the seams? The only way forward is by asking hard questions that end with some uncomfortable and unsettling implications.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Special Acknowledgement: First and foremost I would like to thank my editor Soildier for his help in preparing this chapter.
> 
> Author's Note: So, first of all, I must make my apologies for this chapter being super late. I skipped a whole month, and that was my bad. You'll be pleased to know, however, that I'm working on the next chapter and have not in any way given up on this story.
> 
> A very happy Easter to those of you who celebrated. I hope you all had a wonderful celebration with good friends and family around—as I did. For those of you who don't, I can only hope that this time of year had been especially kind to you.
> 
> Spring is starting and already I'm working on my spring garden. Looking for work is taking up some time as I need money so that I can live and have a life.
> 
> I would like to thank my reviewers and I hope that my work continues to be as pleasing to you.
> 
> Also of note is that there's a picture accompanying this chapter: It's of Silver when he first appeared to the cornered Nick and Judy.
> 
> Warning: There is a torture scene this chapter. Please beware as it details a brutal declawing. It's the scene with Bogo so, read it because there's some information in it, but just know that that's in there if you need to avoid such scenes.
> 
> General Statement: As I stated before, I welcome any and all criticism pertaining to the story. If I miss a bit of grammar here or there let me know so I can fix it. If there's something that strikes you a mistake or an error let me know so that I can fix that, too; and yes, I do fix mistakes that are pointed out to me. Speaking from personal experience, nothing can take me out of a story more than a misspelt word or a grammatical mistake—especially if they're too common. Any other comments, questions, or concerns? Feel free to PM me.
> 
> Disclaimer: This is a work of fanfiction and has no claim whatsoever on the characters of Nick Wilde and Judy Hopps who are the sole property of The Walt Disney Company. In no way have I sought money, monetary value, nor profit of any kind for the writing of this story.

* * *

 

Nick tossed and turned as he slept. Colours and vague flashes of scenery rumbled like thunder through his dreams. Something vague and familiar resonated in his mind as the strange and dangerous fox they'd only met the night before crossed his mind.

Judy twitched next to him and awoke to the sound of his groaning. She eyed him a moment before reaching out and gently shaking him.

"Nick . . . hey, Nick!" she said in a hushed whisper.

He snorted before suddenly shooting bolt upright.

He was gasping, panting heavily, his body feeling hot and uncomfortable.

"Elder," he whispered.

He looked straight ahead, his eyes landing on the door ahead of them.

He jumped out of bed, hurriedly.

"Hey, Nick!" called Judy, "Where're you going?" she asked, sitting up.

He was still gasping, searching for the shirt he'd left strewn on the ground. Snatching it up, he quickly pulled it on and started buttoning it.

"Nick, are you okay?"

"I-I just remembered something."

"What?" she asked.

"I mean I had a dream," he amended.

"About what?"

"About the new guy."

"The fox?"

He nodded.

"And what, you're gonna ask him about it?"

"It felt  _real_ , Judy."

"What was the dream about?"

"I-I can't really remember. Mammals. Weird-looking mammals. They were on a platform. There was some kind of fight. I . . . ." He trailed off as the haziness of the vision left him fumbling for words.

"Nick, I don't think you should really be talking to him alone."

"I have to!"

"It doesn't feel safe!"

"He said he isn't going to hurt us."

"Yeah, that was before he broke an innocent bunny's back!"

"We don't know if he's innocent."

"I have a hunch. Honey said-"

"I know what Honey said," Nick interrupted. "But this guy . . . I have a feeling about him. That he's not wrong."

"Did you get the feeling that Jack was anything other than on the up and up?" she returned.

"He could have been lying."

"Nick, you're better than even I am when it comes to reading people. You had me pegged from the moment we met. Do you remember? You knew the basics about me just from meeting me once."

"Judy," he said as he pulled up his pants, "these guys are professional liars. Jack is a spy. He hides himself for a living. Neither of us can trust him. You saw the powers the fox out there had, and you heard about what happened to your twin when she met the human. From meeting him once, she wanted to kill herself. If that's what happened to her from one meeting imagine what's going on with Jack who supposedly embraced him. He could be trying to get us all to give up or something. For all we know, the break down of communication between everybody onboard the ship when they decided to betray Hopps was his fault!"

Judy looked sceptic. "I just think we need to wait until we see more. Honey's right: It's not on Jack to prove his innocence. You're a police officer: you  _know_  that."

Nick stopped and looked at her as he finished buttoning his pants. "I know, but . . . I just don't want anything to happen to you."

"Neither do I," she whispered. She hopped off the bed and came toward him, her eyes seeking him in the nearly total blackness of her room. She let her ears form a picture of him in her mind and started toward him.

He opened his arms and hugged her when she reached him.

"Just . . . be careful with him, please?" she asked.

He nodded. "I will be." He kissed the top of her head and let her go, walking toward the door and looking back to her as he reached it. "I love you," he smiled.

She couldn't see him, but she smiled back at him as she crawled back into bed. "I love you, too," she murmured as she snuggled in.

He opened the door and went out, facing the dimly lit common room. His eyes landed immediately on the fox reclining on one off the couches as he closed the bedroom door behind him.

"She really should be more trusting," said the silver figure.

Nick sucked in a deep breath. As much as he'd defended the silver fox, he had to admit that Judy had a valid point. Moreover, the battle between the fox and Jack had looked fierce, and the bunny had been nearly defenceless. Anybody witnessing such a thing had a valid right to be afraid of the violence and the apparent aggressor.

"I think so too, but I can't blame her," said Nick.

"But you trust me?" said the fox as he sat up to get a good look at Nick.

Nick nodded as he strode further into the common area. "Yeah. I don't know why, but I do . . . Elder . . . ."

Nick let the name hang between them and watched as the fox's eyes widened slightly with interest.

"I assume that word means something to you?" asked the fox.

"Well," started Nick, "I just had a dream. A dream where I saw you. I mean . . . it wasn't but it was like . . .  _playing_  you in the dream. There was a fight that was going on. Some sort of council or other. I don't really know what it was, but you were there. And the creatures there . . . they said your name. They said the word, 'Elder.'"

Nick flattened his ears as he gazed at the mammal before him.

"You're not really a fox, are you?" asked Nick.

The fox took a breath. "A fox is all I am, Nick."

"But . . . I thought I saw-"

"It's all I am, Nick," said the fox assuringly. The low timbre of his voice sent shivers through Nick even as the fox before him wanted to calm him.

Nick paused for a moment, the oddness and strangeness of the dream staying with him.

"I just want to know why I would have a dream like that," said Nick. "Did you have something to do with it?"

Although the fox before him didn't look anything like the creatures in his dream, Nick was of the strong and sure opinion that he knew that this fox had been among those he'd seen there and that this fox knew what the "Elder" meant in his dream. He had dealt with hustlers and schemers long enough to tell when someone wasn't being entirely truthful.

Nick shook his head. "Why am I-"

"I don't know," replied the fox ponderously. "Sometimes a dream is just a dream."

He sat back in thought.

"Anyway . . ." trailed Nick, "I just thought you should know."

The fox nodded slowly as a very interesting thought began to take hold in his mind. He took a seemingly laboured breath and let it out.

"You should go to back to bed. There's going to be a lot for you to have to deal with in the morning, and there are no answers awaiting you this night."

Nick sighed and yawned. He nodded slowly as he looked at the silver fox carefully. He had closed his eyes and seemed to be meditating.

"Get some rest," reiterated the reclining creature.

Nick turned slowly and went back to his room. He found Judy fast asleep, curled in a bun on the side of the bed.

Sighing, Nick stripped.

He fell asleep almost as soon as his head hit the pillow, his last thought before sleep took him was that, for a moment out there, he felt almost certain that he'd met the fox before . . .

-.-.-.-

Bogo opened his eyes and took a deep breath. Looking at his surroundings, he found he didn't immediately recognise where he was. He could hear the sound of a beeping heart monitor.

He looked down at himself to see that he was out of uniform, dressed in something lighter. He wasn't in hospital, that was for sure.

He heard a sound near him, and he sat up to find that he was handcuffed to the bed.

"Hey, you up?"

Bogo turned toward where he'd heard the voice. It sounded like-

"Yaguarete?" he asked, his low baritone voice resonating of the walls of the room. "What's going on here?"

He searched for his friend in the low lighting but found he had trouble seeing. It was an eerie sight when his friend's eyes suddenly shone out from the darkness.

"I don't know," replied the jaguar. "They pulled me out of the middle of the battle."

"What battle? What're you talking about?"

"Oh, that's right, they said that you were out. There was a battle an-"

A door opened with a clang at the far end of the room which was covered with darkness.

"Well, I'm glad to see you're more comfortable now," came a smooth, feminine voice.

Bogo turned to see Swinton walking toward them. She flicked on a light switch, and Bogo looked up, blinking as the lights came on, irritating his eyes.

He turned back to Yaguarete to find him tied to a chair.

"What is the meaning of this?" asked Bogo.

He pulled against his restraint.

"Uh-uh!" Swinton sing-songed as she pulled out a gun, aiming it at Yaguarete. "I have some questions for you."

"Wh-what?!" started Bogo as he watched Swinton walk nearer to Yaguarete.

"So . . ." she trailed softly, "how did you end up injured?" she asked.

"What's happening?!" shouted Yaguarete as he struggled against his ties. "Bogo, what's going on?!"

"Oh, I'll tell you what's going on," said Swinton, softly. "It appears that Bogo here might have helped the rebels who were in the city."

"You what?!" shouted the jaguar, rounding on the buffalo.

"I didn't!" shouted Bogo as he pulled against the handcuff. "How dare y-"

"Uh-uh!" said Swinton again, cocking the gun. "First, let me set a ground rule: for every lie you tell, Yaguarete here loses a claw."

"No!" shouted Yaguarete as he strained, his eyes looking around wildly for some way to escape. "Bogo, what the hell is this?!"

"Swinton, what is this?!" shouted Bogo.

"It's simple: I want answers and I need you to tell me the truth."

The door opened again and in walked a small doctor. A stoic nurse—a squirrel—followed behind him. The nurse carried with him a trey laden with surgical equipment.

Two zebra officers flanked them.

Quickly, they had untied the jaguar who struggled against the two officers.

"Get the fuck off me! Get off!" he shouted as they proffered his paw. "Stop! Don't! Mallory! Warfield! Sop!" he shouted as the twisted and bent him.

The doctor calmly took the paw and drew out a finger, swabbing it gently with a cotton ball.

He took a scalpel from the trey and held it aloft for a moment before looking to Swinton for a signal.

She looked at Bogo. "What happens next is up to you," she stated, her voice rising above the muffled cries coming from the struggling feline.

"Bogo! Bogo, please!" he shouted.

The buffalo clenched his teeth as he watched the scene unfold before him.

"Swinton, don't do this," said Bogo, his voice laiden with fear.

"Don't do what?" she giggled. "Nothing's going to happen unless you make it happen. Now," she said, turning to other matters, "it's true: you lost your weapon. I want to know how."

"I . . . I was ambushed."

She let out a sigh. "Oh dear. Getting off to a bad start, are we?" she nodded to the doctor.

Bogo couldn't see but suddenly heard the cat begin to struggle.

"Fuuuuuuck!" came the loud shout along with other cries. "Bogo! God! Please! Stop! For the love of God stop!"

Bogo jerked as he heard his friend roaring loudly in pain.

"Swinton, stop!" shouted Bogo. "I'll tell you everything!"

"Too late!" she said. "I'm not playing, Bogo," she said as the jaguar's yowls died down somewhat, replaced by laboured breathing and short sobs.

"It's true! I was ambushed!"

Swinton rolled her eyes again and nodded once more behind her.

"Nonono! Waitwaitwait!" came the jaguar's voice behind her.

Bogo flinched again and bolted up, pulling hard against the handcuff, feeling it's weak metal begin to break even as the metal cut into his wrist.

He felt the metal of the barrel of the gun press against his head as he lay on his side, his eyes focused on the cuff.

"Can't have you escaping, now, can I?" she asked.

Bogo stiffened, even as violent shouts of his friend resounded off the tiled walls.

He couldn't see what was happening but  _could_  see a stream of blood making its way along on the floor. He felt his breath seize in his chest, his whole body stiffening when he saw it.

Yaguarete's breath was laboured. "Bogo . . . Bogo please . . . ."

He swallowed.

"How did you lose your weapon?" she asked again. Her face was a mask of stoicism.

Bogo let out a shuddering breath. "I-I had it taken from me!"

She turned to nod but Bogo caught her. "It's true! I swear it! Leave him alone! I was ambushed by Arborel, and while we were talking Nick Wilde took it off me!"

She halted and looked back at him.

"Did you have an opportunity to take them down?"

"I took down the other's but not Arborel."

Swinton seemed to be in deep thought. "Nick Wilde you say? You're certain?"

"Yes!"

"But then why didn't you tell us in the first place that it was taken off you?"

Bogo was stricken dumb. He hadn't told them . . . because there was an element of complicity to the story.

He didn't even have to say it: she could read it in his eyes. Her training with the Human was far above par.

"When did you switch sides?" she asked.

Bogo trembled, fear for his friend coursing through his veins. If Bogo died, what would become of his friend? As far as he knew, Yaguarete was the only predator left in the city. Would they kill him as Hopps had said they would?

"When did you switch sides?!" she shrieked. "For how fucking long have you been working for them? For how long have you been in the pockets of those seething monsters?! Those fucking terrorist preds?! Huh?!"

Bogo trembled.

She turned back to the nurse and doctor. "Take'em all off."

"No!" shouted Bogo. "Please! I beg you, don't kill him! I saw Hopps! She came to me! She's the one who told me-"

"Hopps was in the city last night?" she said turning to Bogo. "Hang on a sec!" she shouted behind her to the other prey. "You saw her? You're sure?"

Bogo nodded. "She had me turned around. She had me thinking you were the real problem with the city!" he desperately cried. "I was stupid and I believed her!" He would say anything now to get her to leave Yaguarete alone.

"That's all we needed to know," came an odd sounding voice through a speaker system.

A moment later, the door in the corner was flung open again. Bogo felt a wave of pure hatred flow over him as he looked at the creature before him. It walked on two legs, but it had no muzzle—its face looked as though it'd been smashed in.

"He's telling the truth," said the creature to Swinton. "I can see something of what he's thinking. He really only switched when he saw Hopps."

"What's he thinking now?" asked Swinton.

"My reach isn't that strong," said the Human. "I can only  _just_  see his surface thoughts."

"Very well," said Swinton as she turned back to Bogo. "I'm glad to finally have something of the truth out of you."

"Unfortunately, your lies and your attempt to cover up what happened with the prey cannot go unpunished," said the strange creature as he looked at Bogo.

Swinton stood aside, revealing to Bogo's horror the mass of blood that was his friend's right paw.

"It looks worse than it is," said Swinton easily. "The thing with wounds on your paws is that, while the cuts themselves may not be very deep, there are a lot of small vessels in fingers and they bleed  _a lot_." She let out a deep breath. "It's about to get a lot worse for him now, though," she said as she looked at the heaving, gasping feline, his brow covered with sweat.

The strange creature looked at Bogo. "Shoot him."

Bogo felt a cold numbness chill his blood. The life drained out of his face as he looked at the prone cat.

"What?" asked Bogo.

"What?!" shouted Yaguarete.

"You heard him," said Swinton. "Kill him."

Bogo felt himself become numb to the point of near paralysis as Swinton held the gun on him. The strange creature came around and unfastened the thick cuff on his wrist.

"Stand up!" she barked.

When he didn't budge, she put the gun to his forehead.

"Move," she bit out.

Bogo felt himself stand.

Yaguarete struggled. "Bogo! Bogo, please! Agh!" he choked as one of the officers sank his knee into the jaguar's neck.

Bogo strode slowly over to where the prone jaguar was pinned down.

He rasped as his glaring eyes found Bogo. The buffalo felt his throat tighten when he saw the blood that oozed from his friend's paws. The mammal was covered in sweat and was in an amount of pain that showed in ever feature of his expression.

The two officers got off him and hauled the feline to a kneeling position by his arms.

"Oh, God, Bogo . . . please . . ." the jaguar trailed. "What the hell is this? What's going on, Swinton. What the hell is that thing over there? I thought . . . I thought you were my friend."

The pig chortled, genuinely tickled by what she heard. "You thought we were friends?" she wheezed between gasps of laughter. "I don't know what gave you that impression. What, you thought that if you towed the party line that I would somehow forget that you were a pred? Trust me, no prey has  _ever_  forgotten that, Sharp Tooth," she sneered.

"You're the only pred left in the city," remarked the Human. "We expelled the bats two nights ago and took out Happy Town. We figured that at some point you'd get the hint and leave. On the other hand, you've saved us the trouble of having to hunt you down and kill you."

Swinton reached out and handed Bogo the gun. He stood like a pillar, unable to move as the true horror of the situation bore down on him.

"We're gonna kill you either way," said Swinton to the jaguar. "We thought we'd use it as a test. To see just how much Bogo really has repented of his evil ways."

"Swinton . . ." trailed Bogo, his voice becoming shaky, "you can't just kill him in cold blood. That breaks several laws!"

"Well," started Swinton, "it's either you kill him now or we kill you, but not before you watch him die, slowly and painfully. First go his claws, one by one," she jeered. "Then his teeth. Then the claws on his feet-"

"Enough!" shouted a panting Yaguarete. He seemed to be gasping, trembling with fear.

Bogo looked down at the terrified creature. The jaguar was looking down on the ground, as though trying not to see.

"Bogo, just do it!" he whispered.

"Yag . . ." started Bogo, unable to keep the sorrow from welling in his throat.

"Don't," he returned, his eyes still downcast. "Just do it," he whispered again.

Yaguarete looked right into his eyes.

His teeth were clenched and his face was set.

In the reflection of his gaze, Bogo could see his friend already mourning the life he hadn't lived. He didn't know what to do. What was being asked of him was morally reprehensible. But he was being given the opportunity now to save his friend from a terrible death. A  _more_  terrible one.

There was no way this scenario ended with his friend coming out alive. That's what Swinton promised. And witnessing and hearing what he had, he knew she meant it, too. It was also proof positive that everything Hopps, Wilde, and the other rebels had told him was true.

The city was evil and it was worth it to fight against it.

But not here. This was a battle he could not win without being complicit in some way with his friend's suffering.

Tremblingly, he raised the gun.

"Bogo . . ." whispered the jaguar as the barrel levelled with his forehead, "just do it quick. No waiting."

The buffalo swallowed. "Do you have anything you want to say? Anything you want me to pass on?"

The jaguar shook his head. "N-no there's . . . there's no one. I just wanted to say . . . you were a good friend. And . . . I didn't want things to end this way and . . . I guess that's it, just . . . thanks. But I really just wish you hadn't gotten me into this," he chuckled humourlessly. He let out a shuddering breath. "Okay . . . I'm ready . . . ."

Bogo swallowed and took a deep breath as he felt his throat close.

He let out a breath  
and pulled the trigger.

There was a click as the empty chamber fired.

Yaguarete shuddered.

Bogo held up the gun and looked at it.

He turned to Swinton. "It's empty."

"I know. I just wanted to make sure you knew where you stood with us." She walked up to him and slapped him twice, playfully on the cheek. "Never forget that you're in my pocket, Bogo. Betray me again, and it won't be just your friends I go after."

She winked at him and smiled before turning and heading toward the door, the strange creature holding it open for her.

"You're free to go," it said to him.

Bogo shuddered at the sound of its voice.

"No," said Swinton, "let him stay. His friend'll probably need a ride home after they finish declawing him."

Bogo shuddered. "You said-"

"You didn't kill him, so that means he gets declawed."

"I did what you asked!"

"Relax," she said breezily, "just his paws and feet declawed. Not gonna kill him, or have his teeth pulled. I have to show some mercy: I'm not a monster, after all."

She closed the door as behind him, Bogo could hear the tortured screams of his friend.

"Oh, fuck! God! God! Bogo! Bogo! Bogo, please!  ** _Please!_** "

Try as he might, could not shut them out.

-.-.-.-

Honey heaved a sigh as she came over to Hopps.

The bunny was seated in front of a computer screen. Her head ached and her eyes were watering slightly over the hours she'd been putting in as she and several others in the room with her poured over anything—anything at all—that might implicate Jack.

"Bad news first," said Honey as she came around behind Hopps.

The bunny closed her eyes and rubbed them heartily before stopping. She reached over and picked up a glass of water. She took a long pull, closing her eyes as she relished the slight break from reading.

After letting out a refreshing gasp, Hopps stretched, yawning slightly as she answered. "There  _is_  no bad news," she started, "at least, not as far as we can tell. There are a few times Jack went off by himself but . . ." Hopps' ears tinted slightly, "after calling around, we figured out that he was spending time with Skye. We even called her to confirm it."

"How is she so sure?" asked Honey, a slight grin on her face.

Hopps giggled slightly. "When I asked her the same thing, she told me to trust her: that the evenings she spent with Jack were  _very_  memorable."

Honey let out a good laugh before settling down.

"All joking aside," Hopps tittered, "she said it's because the days that she gets that kind of free time are  _very_  few and far between. We had her tell us the dates she met up with him without telling her the dates that  _we_  had so that she couldn't lie or cover for him. She gave us every one."

Honey frowned.

"I'm telling you," Hopps continued, " _everything_  we're finding only exonerates Jack more. This has got to be a mistake," she said as she turned back to the monitor.

Honey let out a sigh. "It's no mistake," breathed Honey.

Hopps turned back. "Oh, no. I'm so sorry, you mean that Jack's-"

"No! No. That's not what I meant," Honey cut in.

Hopps looked at her expectantly.

"I just got into another argument with that fox," said Honey. "I shouldn't've started it, but I'm just so fucking pissed about this move."

"What did he say?"

"Just that he was certain about Jack's status. He reiterated that Jack had to have had physical contact with the Human at some point."

Hopps breathed out a sigh as she let her mind wander. "That really sucks about the move," she leaned back slightly, popping her spine against the back of the chair.

"You must be tired," said Honey. "That's your first non sequitor of the day."

Hopps chucked. "So what did you mean when you were talking about there being 'No mistake'?"

"Oh," said Honey, refocusing, "I just meant that Silver's certain Jack's some kind of villain. I mean, I consider myself to be a reasonably good judge of character and intention-"

"I'll say," said Hopps.

"-and I know that that fox isn't lying about his motives. He's dead positive that Jack's got it in for us."

Hopps nodded, looking down as she tilted her head in thought. "I just can't square it, though," she said. "I've been looking at Jack's records—we all have—and there's nothing."

"Well, there's gotta be  _something_ ," said Honey. "I believe him when he says that it had to be through contact. He told me he could even fell the taint on  _you_  from when you were with the Human."

Hopps gave Honey a questioning look.

"Oh, look, it was nothing," said Honey. "I think he just likes to try and get under mammals' skin. He said that I was letting my emotions rule me when it comes to Jack and that I wasn't seeing the whole picture. I thought I was seeing things relatively clearly, and I told him that, at which point he said that it was my confidence in myself that . . . led me put you in a situation where . . . you'd see what you'd see . . . with . . . the Human," Honey finished, pausing slightly and lamely. She tried not to let it show that the fox's words had hit home. Whether she agreed with his reasoning or not, it was easy to hit her right in the guilt trip—she  _still_  felt personally responsible for what had happened to her little protégé at the paws of that freak and the subsequent suicide attempt.

Hopps shook her head. "That wasn't your fault . . . and it wasn't my fault."

"I should have known. I should have known not to send you there. Not for a first assignment."

Hopps started and looked up at Honey, an odd expression on her face. "Stop it. The only one whose fault it is, is the Human's . . ." she trailed slowly. She shook her head, clearing it. "Look, never mind the fact that that fox knows that about me," continued Hopps, "I never actually touched the Human."

Now it was Honey's turn to look surprised. "Well, then maybe he could have touched Jack from a distance! Maybe he really was working for the Human an-"

"No, no!" said Hopps, her own gears turning now, "because I was in his presence. I saw him looking down into the yard from balcony during the cull. He was in the prison!"

Honey only stared at her. "Right . . . I don't get-"

"No, no, of course you wouldn't! But I know because I was there!"

"You know what?"

"That Silver dude has to be wrong! Look, we've checked with all of Jack's guys, right? We know that Jack's logged his time meticulously for the past forever. He's surprisingly anal for a badass assassin spy. We're talking about a rabbit who logs his fuck sessions," she giggled. "But think about it—I spent a short amount of time in the Human's presence—I wasn't even in the same room with him and I still felt it! So, if this fox is so certain that Jack had physical contact with the Human, why aren't the rest of his guys affected? Never once have they ever described any odd incidents of suicide or suicidal ideation or anything! They've never felt the darkness that that monster brings. So . . . why Jack? How could it be Jack? How could Jack be a traitor when his time is—mostly—accounted for? He was recruited right out of college and went into special training. Never once has his behaviour been untoward, never called out for an illness, never missed a training session, never gave any hint ever that anything was wrong."

"What if he fabricated his logs?" returned Honey.

"We're examining that possibility, but so far, we've been cross-referencing all of the dates and times and have come up with nothing. Every time his records show that he was gonna be some place, he was there."

"I hope Jack never finds out that we know this much about his personal life."

"Oh, he will," replied Hopps.

"Well . . ." said Honey shaking her head, trying to puzzle this out, "what if they met sometime  _before_  his time was accounted for like it is now?"

"What? Like in college or high school?" asked Hopps incredulously.

"What if he's playing us? What if this has all been part of a long haul? To finally attack us when everything's still up in the air?"

"You're suggesting that he's been infiltrating us for the last ten to fifteen years?"

"I have to put it out there."

"Okay . . ." mused Hopps as she stretched her arms out behind her, "counter point: Why wait ten to fifteen years? Why not kill you when he had the chance? Why help COR become one of the most successful organisations fighting against Zootopia? Not a single piece of information he's given us has turned out to be a dead end. If he were working for  _them_ , he would have been feeding us at least  _some_  misinformation, but everything he's given us has been top notch spy work. If he were going to make a move, the night of our attack would have been it: Just flip on a radio signal and alert the ZPD to where we were. The coast guard could have had us trapped in the bay with no escape. They would have caught Nick Wilde and the shit-starting Judy Hopps in one swoop along with COR's most valuable assets and an organisation leader, to boot."

Honey nodded. "This whole mess is like a knot that gets tighter the more you try and untie it."

Hopps passed a paw over her face. "So . . . what do we have? Near certainty that Jack has never betrayed our organisation—with a few leads left to check out—but I think it's safe to say that he hasn't; so we have that on the one paw, and on the other, we have the  _absolute_  certainty—according to this fox," she said, looking at Honey, "that he's been in physical contact with the Human. So how do we square this?"

Honey pondered for a moment. "He might . . . be a sleeper agent. He may have been brain washed and not know of his own involvement."

Hopps nodded. "Okay, but when did he become one?"

"Well, none of his men were affected by the Human, so it was before he was given a command. None of his commanders when he was a cadet ever noticed anything, so maybe we can safely say it was before that. Maybe they got him while he was in college? Maybe they were the one's who got him to join COR?"

Hopps shook her head. "No, that's not quite it, because  _he_  was recruited by  _COR_ , remember? He had the highest marks in his class. He majored in criminology with a minor in psychology for his Bachelors. Without that, there's no way for him to have started his climb up the ranks. We all know that he was recruited for the ZBI and the ZIA before we got him. He dropped out of training with both them, right? And went  _back_  to college, right? Toyed around with a few different law enforcement careers, did some local police work, etcetera, but he didn't like that either because, well, you know how they are. Then he became a juris doctor, got his law license, and became a lawyer."

Honey nodded. "I know. He was already working for COR by then."

"The only time he could have touched the Human is when he was an officer with the ZPD for, like, five minutes. And even then, Bellwether was in charge, and I don't think that she was as close to the Human as Swinton is."

Honey nodded.

"The only way I can see Jack as having been part of some sleeper agent program," continued Hopps, "is if he made some move to join COR intentionally, and that isn't what happened. COR reached out to  _him_."

"Unless someone on the inside were influencing things?" Honey pointed.

"Mmm," pondered Hopps. "Maybe, but that's purely speculation right now. All we know is that Jack's been in the Human's presence at some point but somehow remained totally unaffected by it."

"And that it couldn't have been that he was trying to betray us or he would have done it by now," Honey added.

Hopps nodded. "That's reasonable, I think. I've never been on a mission with him, but you told me that you'd been on a few with him. Did he ever . . ." Hopps trailed.

Honey shook her head. "No. No, I never saw anything. I've taken down traitors in the organisation before, and Jack never gave me any indication that there was anything going on."

"Curioser and curioser," murmured Hopps.

"And down the rabbit hole we go," finished Honey.

The bunny rolled her eyes and snorted. "Yeah, I guess."

Honey let out a sigh. "Well, as fascinating as this discussion's been, I gotta go check on Jack again before I get back to coordinating this move."

"Do we have a new place, yet?"

"No," replied Honey. "I'm trying to find some facility out of the way on the edges of town so that if we get attacked, it happens far away from this place."

Hopps nodded as Honey turned to leave.

"Oh, one more thing!" said Hopps.

Honey stopped and turned around. "Yeah?"

"How's Jack?"

Honey let out a sigh. "Well . . . it's not good. He's still unconscious and he's died once so far."

"It's that bad?"

"There're a lot of internal injuries." Her face became a mask of anger and fury before Hopps watched it melt away. "But . . ." breathed Honey slowly, "there's nothing I can do about it."

Hopps watched as the badger turned. Her shoulders were set, and her stride was confident and sure in spite of the uncertainty of their situation. Hopps continued to watch her as she walked down the tribute, becoming smaller and smaller as she faded down the dark tunnel alone.

-.-.-.-

Fay sagged in a chair in the hospital wing of what at one time had been her home. It felt more and more as though it had been overrun. Doctors from the hospital had stopped in for rounds, taking care of patients. The medical facility had been gracious enough to lend a few of the staff out along with medical supplies.

Moving Jack to the city hospital was impossible: All the wards, or so she'd heard, had been filled up by sick preds who'd come in a vast and rapid influx from Happy Town and the surrounding area. Seemingly over night, an entire city's worth of preds had shown up and nearly singlehandedly maxed out the hospital's resources. Overflow had gone to Deerbrook General whose staff had graciously taken in the worst cases.

Fay looked over, tiredly. There was a ward sister—a superior nurse—who was sitting at a desk who also happened to be her cousin. Dr. Wilde was crashed out on a nearby sofa while her more experienced siblings were making their rounds. Several of the mice who'd been successfully treated had been conveyed to yet another wing of the house and given quarter there.

Fay heaved a sigh, relaxing after the tense situation not half an hour ago.

Jack had crashed for the second time. It was scary for her. She didn't know what to think or what to do. She worked as quickly as she could to perform everything Nick and her brother had asked of her. She was impressed by the end of it with the way that they'd saved his life.

She'd finally come down the spiral ramp for a rest. Dr. Wilde had, too. But while his rest had been found almost immediately, she had trouble finding hers.

As much as she tried, she couldn't close her eyes without the images of the terrible fight flashing before her eyes: The fox's motivations for harming Jack had been explained to her, and so she was grateful on the one paw. Yet on the other, there were laws of justice to deal with criminals. She had no idea what to make of the situation. There was no way for her to really know whether the bunny were in the right or in the wrong, but Honey had seemed so adamant that the fox had acted without cause.

Speaking of Honey, Fay perked her ears up and sat up straight as Honey strode into the commons.

The badger looked around and saw Nick crashed out on the couch. She saw the ward sister, looked at her profile for a moment before coming forward.

"How's Jack?" she asked.

The nurse turned to see it was Honey. "Where were you? I sent one of my cousins to find you but he came back and told me that he hadn't seen you."

"I was just in the other wing," she said, vaguely. "I was talking to Ho- I mean, I was talking to your sister. Judy, I mean. What's the matter?"

There was a momentary pause.

"Hyacinth, just tell her," said Fay.

Honey looked over at Fay before looking back at the nurse, worry tinting her expression slightly.

"Jack's fine, first of all," said Hyacinth, giving a quick look over at Fay, "but he crashed again. Nick— _Dr. Wilde_ ," she amended, "was able to help my brother and me to stabilise him."

Honey let out a breath she'd been holding and nodded slightly. "Okay. Well, at least that," she murmured.

"I went ahead and alerted the authorities, by the way."

Honey looked at the nurse, puzzled for a moment before the bunny continued.

"I mean, if what they said is true, and he really is working for the monsters who tortured my cousin, I want him in jail. I want him under the jail."

Honey sighed. "Well, we've been conducting an investigation and we haven't found anything."

The bunny furrowed her brow. "Are you sure?"

The badger nodded. "We're nearly finished and there's been nothing so far. It's good you called the cops, though. You did the right thing."

"But . . ." started the bunny, "if he's innocent that means the fox-"

"No, no. It's not like that," interrupted Honey. "I think . . . that it's a case of mistaken identity."

"Mistaken identity?"

"Yeah . . ." trailed Honey, refusing to elaborate. "Something like that. Can I see him?" she asked about Jack as she pointed up the ramp.

The nurse shook her head. "No, I'm sorry. He woke up for a while but he's resting now. There's a nurse in there with him now to monitor his vitals since we don't have a central system here that could alert us. It's better to have someone with him at all times, anyway, in case he wakes up and there's no one there."

Honey nodded. "Would you let me know when he wakes up?" she asked.

"Sure," she replied. "Just don't go too far."

The badger took a pen and a scrap of paper from the desk.

"Listen," she started seriously as she began to write, "if anything changes, just call my number. I'll answer it wherever I am. Let me know whether he takes a turn for the worse. Or better. Hopefully better," she finished darkly before handing the paper to the bunny.

Hyacinth nodded and taped the number to her monitor.

"Thanks," said Honey as she turned away.

"No problem," called the bunny after her before going back to her work.

Fay hummed to herself as she took in the conversation. Jack might be innocent. The fox might be wrong.

She had found the fox somewhat approachable before. When she'd seen his face, the way he changed, the way he'd threatened, the way his eyes glowed! It had been like a dagger through her heart, striking fear through her core.

She'd overheard her sister's double and her mate talking with each other: arguing about why he should or shouldn't heal Jack.

At the very least, thought Fay, he might be able to heal, the mice who were there with them. And what about the mammals at the hospital? They were overrun with animals who all needed help. Maybe he'd heal Jack, too, if it were shown he was wrong.

He was there to fight the human and not to help them, though. But he seemed capable of healing non fatal injuries well enough. She had to ask him!

It occurred to her that the reason why nobody had bothered asking him for his help was that for one, he'd made himself scarce; and two, he'd already refused to help Jack.

It seemed heartless to a lot of the mammals who'd been staying with them once rumour spread about the creature's abilities. That same sentiment had turned to agreement with their silver guest when the tidbit was added that Jack might be a traitor.

Still, the initial impression had been made. While on the one paw, mammals seemed to appreciate him and what he was trying to do, they also felt as though he were unapproachable. Only Honey and the doubles of her sister and Dr. Wilde had gone anywhere near him to talk to him.

And then there was herself, of course, thought Fay. She herself had tentatively spoken to the fox and gotten him to speak to her civilly. Perhaps, she wondered, she might get him to listen to reason.

Shakily, she stood up from her seat and made her way down the halls.

-.-.-.-

Hopps stretched as she entered the small common room. She looked around and saw the room that her double and her double's mate were undoubtedly taking a rest. It  _still_  bugged her that she didn't have her room back. Things had piled up on her plate too quickly for her to really do anything about it.

She spotted the silver fox immediately and quickly decided to leave.

But something stopped her.

She wasn't sure why, but as she saw him there, the revelations of earlier that afternoon flitted through her mind.

"You know," she started, "it's looking more and more like you're wrong."

"I wasn't aware you knew more on this topic than I do. Just wait and see: When he heals, he  _will_  turn on you. Already, the taint on his soul is acting like a beacon, telling the human right where to find us. You have your badger to thank for that."

Hopps shook her head. "Even so, it doesn't justify the killing of an innocent mammal."

"He's not innocent."

"I don't see any evidence that he's betrayed us."

"The mark defies you."

"And the fact that he's never been with the Human defies  _you_."

"I'm sorry, but the mark is proof that he's been with the human. It's a fact."

"Two things can't be true at the same time: He cannot have been marked by the Human while at the same time have had no contact with him in all the time he was with us. Square this circle for me."

The fox chuffed once. "You keep trying to put me in logical corners," he said, amusement lacing his voice. "You seem to be under the mistaken impression that I have to bow before the superiority of your evidence. If someone came in and told me the sky were green when it's really blue, the answer isn't that it's really some mix of the two. The truth and a lie are not even  _almost_  the same thing. The obvious answer is that the mammal's colour blind."

"So I'm the colour blind one in this scenario?"

He gave her an amused look. "You said it." His gaze turned serious as he regarded her. "The fact of the matter is that they  _were_  together. Jack was in his presence and took the human's mark. It  _had_  to be through physical touch. That's a fact, and if you don't like it, I'm sorry Little Sergeant, but that's the way it is."

Hopps rapidly thumped her foot on the ground, a mask of frustration covering her face. "Then why weren't his team members affected?"

"The obvious answer is that his team members weren't there at the meeting," said the fox matter-of-factly.

"Right, but even being  _near_  the Human is enough to leave  _some_  taint. Like it did with me."

"Then the answer is that he wasn't in their vicinity."

"But that can't be! His time is accounted for, don't you see?"

The fox shook his head. "No, I'm afraid you're the one who doesn't see. The fact of the matter is that he touched the human."

If she didn't know any better, she'd think he were pleading with her to see reason.

"Listen," he continued, "I'll put the scenario together for you since you're either too foolish or too unwilling to do it yourself—The human touched Jack and left a mark on him to at the very least turn him into a homing beacon, right? The human had a sense of where we were from the moment that rabbit stepped on this land. That's his betrayal if nothing else, but now let me continue," he said, holding up a staying paw as Hopps made to interrupt.

"I  _did_  mention to Honey that his team members—those I've been able to sense here—bare no trace of the human's presence. That means that somewhere along the way, Jack managed to sneak away and do his own deal with the creature. He met with the human and has been in his employ for some time now. Years even. Concoct whatever facts you want along the way in order to make it make sense: It ends with him meeting with the human. If you have any love for your friends and family, you'll end that miserable creature's existence. I hear he's died twice now. Third time's the charm."

And with that, he popped away, leaving nothing but an empty seat.

Hopps let out a sigh and turned just in time to see Fay pop in.

"Is that fox around here?" she asked as she looked at her sister.

Hopps shook her head. "He was. You just missed him. But hey, I don't want you hanging around him. He's dangerous."

Fay nodded and dashed off before the older bunny could even finish.

"Okay, thank you!" she shouted over her shoulder.

Hopps frowned as she watched her sister run away, not liking the most recent developments at all.

-.-.-.-

Honey took a deep breath and let it out slowly as the sound of a heart monitor repeated its monotonous beeping.

Jack was staring at her out of confusion for the question she'd just asked him.

About fifteen minutes ago, Honey'd gotten the call that Jack was stirring.

He was weak and barely able to speak, but with some coaxing he seemed to be coming around.

She'd chatted with him idly about how he was feeling and how everyone was hoping that he'd pull through. A blatant lie since his reputation seemed to be tanking by the minute. The silver fox's certainty as to Jack's guilt seemed to be contagious, and while most mammals publicly denounced the attack they were privately harbouring suspicions as to what Jack might have been up to with the Human and how he might've been able to avoid suspicion all this time.

Suspicion was also starting to fall on Honey. Her cracked reputation, dealt a blow by the revelation that she was working with Hopps, was now facing new criticisms and new suspicions.

If Jack were guilty and had been able to avoid suspicion for such a long time, one of the most reasonable explanations as to how he'd've been able to do so involved Honey.

Honey was already linked to the Human through Hopps. Perhaps Hopps was an envoy of the Human's or visa versa.

Even if Honey weren't guilty of that, what kind of incompetent fool would be able to work so closely with someone as she had with Jack and  _not_  see the signs that they were a traitor?

As much as Honey had tried to keep ahead of the tide, the gears of the bureaucracy had already been set into motion.

Those who were above her in the organisation were already bombarding her with requests for information and status updates.

A request for a hearing had been filed by COR through legal channels in neighbouring Deerbrook county complete with a subpoena for her appearance. It was apparently a request for a finding of fact when it came to her leadership abilities.

Complaints about Hopps' status as a spy had been thrown out of the inquest seeing how the organisation itself had been informed from the start as to Honey's intentions for Hopps' use as a spy and had followed the situation very carefully after information regarding the cull and the human had made it to central intelligence.

However, the revelation of Jack's potential defection added a potentially different spin to the matter.

All of Honey's records and files had been requested, even things she had worked on in passing—someone else's case whose own files might have been augmented or dealt indirectly with some information Honey'd been working on, for example, no required a complete and total revision.

All in all, the task had been exhausting.

Honey didn't need to be told to know that Jack was being thoroughly investigated, too.

For good measure, everyone under either Jack's or Honey's authority had been suspended from the investigation while still being allowed to continue their own work in the meantime.

All in all, after everything she was facing, she found that her own mind was filled with doubts that she hadn't had before. Most alarming of them all was the possibility that the fox was right and that Jack really was a traitor.

She felt as though everything were falling apart. Her career was in jeopardy, she was under suspicion of possibly having aided Jack or at least covered up for him, and her authority was being worn away. She had no idea how it had happened seemingly over night. On the one paw, she regretted using Hopps, now, considering the fact that the bunny's reputation was so tainted that it dragged her down with it; yet, on the other paw, she couldn't think of a better choice—Who was closer to either Bellwether and Swinton who had a heart capable of being converted? Hopps had been at the right place, at the right time, and had the right mentality.

Either way, the recognition of her authority had taken a hit that was freaking the fuck out of the top brass who'd been looking forward to having a united front. Honey had to admit that the best strategic move would be to cut ties with both her and Hopps and deny that they'd had any part in hiring the bunny. A lie, of course, but Honey had to admit that she would willingly take the hit and rejoin as a cadet if it meant that it would unify everyone against Zootopia.

As for Jack and his potentially having been working for the Human, sure, she could point clearly to the lack of evidence of any wrong doing, but now that the prick of suspicion included the possibility of her having tampered with his records or with his team simply lying about his whereabouts, there was no way to demonstrate that the opposite was true.

Since this was only a hearing, what was needed was only a preponderance of the evidence rather than a finding beyond a reasonable doubt: Was it more likely than not that Jack was a traitor?

Already, she knew that the hearing would find against Jack.

The evidence against him was non existent but the evidence in his favour was tainted, which meant that the silver fox's testimony would be all that was needed. All it would take would be one demonstration of his ability to read surface thoughts and the gig would be up. Add to that the fact that Honey trusted that the fox had never lied to her and even  _she_  found herself seeing a very real possibility that Jack might be guilty.

She took another deep breath as she shook out of her reverie and looked at the broken bunny.

"I said, 'Did you ever work for the Human?'"

She had to ask that question. Her doubts wouldn't leave her alone. And now that an inquest had been started, she had to know everything she was getting into.

Jack shook his head weakly in confusion.

"No," he said raspily. "What . . .  _what_?" he finished before breaking into a series of coughs.

Honey waited for the coughing to stop before she continued.

"I'm just saying . . . that fox that attacked you . . . he says that you were with the Human."

Jack stared at her blankly as he shook his head. "No," he said easily as he turned his head back on his pillow. He looked straight up at the ceiling. "Was there anything else?" he asked. He could feel sleep dragging him down.

"Well, yeah," said Honey, "I mean . . . can you prove it?"

His look turned to one of confusion. "Prove that I didn't meet with the Human?" he asked. His eyes were unfocused as he gazed upward.

"Jack . . ." she trailed softly, "we've known each other a long time. I . . . the fox says that you have the Human's mark on you. We know for a fact that you were with him. Just . . . tell us how. Tell me the truth, please. When did you meet with the Human?"

"I didn't," he said again, simply. After a moment, "How would I prove that I  _didn't_  meet him? What's this even about?"

It didn't seem right bringing this up now, but she had to voice her thoughts. She needed to know what to expect at the hearing in just a few days and needed to know whether there were any surprises in store for her. Her need for information drove her to the next question. "I just need to know if you betrayed us."

He took a deep breath as he shook his head slightly. "No," he said again, simply. Under normal circumstances, he would have been angry. Furious, even, that she had asked him such a question. But he felt too weak and numbed out to be angry. He felt as though the life had drained away from his limbs, as though there were a hand forcing him down onto the bed. Vaguely, he registered that he couldn't feel some of his limbs, but he was too tired to react to that at all.

Honey didn't know what to think. He seemed so calm in the face of the accusation, and yet on the other hand, he was so tired and so drugged out, she couldn't expect him to show any more emotion than he was.

If that fox were here, he'd be able to evaluate the bunny's statements and thoughts as easily as he'd done to her when he first arrove.

Jack turned tiredly to face her. "You believe him, though, don't you?" asked Jack quietly.

Honey didn't answer for a moment. "I don't know  _what_  to believe," she said at last.

The bunny nodded as he looked back up into the ceiling.

"I know what that means," he said tiredly. "You've already made up your mind, you're just trying to find out how you can prove it, facts be damned."

"Then give me something," she said softly. "Give me anything."

He stared upward and breathed meditatively for a few moments before closing his eyes.

"I don't know . . . what you want from me," he breathed. "I don't know . . . ." His eyes opened slightly. "I was investigated . . . before being recruited," he said. "Check the records, you'll see . . there's nothing there. Nothing like what . . . what happened to . . . Hopps."

"We checked already, but that doesn't prove that you didn't meet with him some other time."

He didn't respond for a moment. Finally, "Then instead of making me guess and think, just tell me what . . . you want me to say or produce and I'll try. What would convince you?"

He spoke slowly, as though he were trudging through molasses.

Honey thought for a moment: What  _would_  it take to convince her? Or that fox? As long as a minute of Jack's life remained unaccounted for, the silver fox would adamantly state that it was in that minute that he met with the Human.

What she needed from Jack was simply impossible. The burden of evidence was stacked too highly against him to the point that it just wasn't fair or reasonable to expect anyone to answer:  _Nobody_  could account for every second of their life! If she were in Jack's position, she'd be furious at the insurmountable task. And again, she found herself going around in circles about the fox: This very situation is why hearsay was inadmissible in a court of law—it's what made he-said she-said cases impossible to prosecute.

But that didn't matter in this instance: hearsay  _was_  admissible at this stage and she had no doubt that the fox would be able to give a convincing demonstration of his ability to read individuals. If enough evidence were found that would warrant a trial or a court marshal, depending on whichever jurisdiction this fell under, it would tear Jack's reputation to pieces, even if he were found innocent due to a lack of material evidence.

Honey was relatively certain that it wouldn't be brought to trial if no material evidence were found, and she was relatively certain there wouldn't be. Which meant that COR would probably be angling for a plea deal that would likely end in Jack being discharged from their service.

There was no way for him to come out of this a winner.

Add to that the fact that his injuries had left him paralysed, and his life was basically over.

"Does everyone else know?" he asked.

"About . . . the accusation? That you're a traitor?"

He nodded weakly.

"Yeah," she said. "They do."

Jack sighed. "There'll be a hearing. Are they like you? Do they believe it, too? What that . . . what that fox said?"

Honey pressed her lips together.

"He has no proof," Jack said, becoming a bit more insistent. "How can you question me? I haven't . . ." he trailed off as he broke into another coughing fit.

"Shh!" said Honey. "Just rest."

He nodded as she tilted him up to give him a sip of water.

He sank back down on the pillow as he took several deep breaths.

"They have no proof. They won't find any proof. I haven't done anything. I would never've . . . never've . . . ."

He trailed off and closed his eyes.

"It's over for me, isn't it?" he asked after a moment.

"Not necessarily . . ."

"No, I mean . . ." he said as he took a breath, "either way, it's over for me. If the hearing and the trial don't get me then  _this_ " he said, regarding his injury, "will. I already know I can't feel my legs. And other parts of my body. I can't feel myself breathing right now. Do you know what it feels like to not even be able to feel yourself breathe? " There was an edge in his voice.

"That's because of the sedatives, not because of your injury," she assured.

He nodded slightly. "Thank God for small miracles," he chuckled before coughing loudly.

He settled down again and closed his eyes. "I want to sleep," he said.

"Alright," said Honey softly. "I just want you to know that Skye's coming."

Jack's head turned quickly to face her as his eyes flashed open.

"No!" he croaked softly. "She . . . she can't see me like this."

"It's a done deal. She'll be here tomorrow. She was in town and COR let her take a leave of absence."

"She shouldn't have."

"Just be glad you have her in your corner. She'll be your saving grace, I'm telling you. You'll be glad she's here once she is."

"God, just kill me now," said Jack as he closed his eyes in worry. He sank back and sighed.

Honey regarded him furiously. "Don't talk like that!" Her tone was sharp.

Jack chuckled and looked at her.

"Things aren't as hopeless as they seem!" she stressed.

"What do you care?" he returned as his eyes closed again. "You don't even believe me when I say I'm innocent."

There was a slight pause before he spoke again.

"Or maybe . . ." he trailed as he began to drift off, "you trust me more than you say you do. I've seen you deal with traitors before. You wouldn't be here now if you didn't think there were some chance I was innocent."

His heart rate slowed gently as she regarded him. He seemed to sob before quickly controlling the action.

"Help me , Honey," he whispered pleadingly as his head gently swayed from side to side. "Please, help me . . . ."

-.-.-.-

Fay had searched everywhere she could think of. Every area of the house had been thoroughly explored, within reason—privately assigned rooms had been off limits to her. She searched near the house outside, and out in the farmland areas.

She stood facing out toward the southern side of the flat farm area. The fields, empty from having been harvested, looked almost like a barren dessert, and she trudged by the rows and rows of empty planting land. At the south-eastern edge of the farm bordered the grassland that seemed to last from horizon to horizon. The billowing field looked almost like a sea.

Evening was coming, and the chill of the evening and the accompanying night sounds were gently creeping up from the soil as she wandered around.

She saw him not far away. She was sure of it.

Walking just to the edge of the farmland, she had let her feet crunch on some of the brittle grasses. She wanted to go to her tree to think. An apple tree was one of the only trees that sprang up from the landscape. Its leaves were dried and most of them had fallen, but it looked welcoming to her. It was her spot.

Beneath its branches, she had spotted a curious figure. It had taken her but a moment to realise it was the fox she'd been looking for.

At first, she set off marching toward him, but her heart began to fail the closer she got, and gradually her steps became more gradual, even to the point of being halting.

Finally, she stopped a few feet off. She lost her bravado all of a sudden and didn't quite know what to say anymore.

From the time she'd overheard Honey and her cousin in the makeshift hospital wing, she'd been thinking of what she might say, what she might do to convince him.

He seemed so set in his ways, so sure of himself, that she began to doubt whether it was even worth it to have the conversation and whether she'd just end up driving him off.

But she had to say something. She couldn't just let it be as long as there was someone he'd possibly harmed wrongfully.

She looked down at the ground. She was certain he'd noticed her approach. She screwed up her face as she tried to focus. It was best just to get it out there.

"There's a chance you're wrong," she said flatly. "About Jack."

He said nothing.

"You should at least go in to see him."

Still nothing.

"You can't just go around hurting animals for no reason."

"I didn't hurt him for no reason, Little One. He meant to do you harm."

"I . . . I don't know what to think. I'm hearing two things. And now Honey's talking about mistaken identities and-"

"I'm not mistaken."

"Haven't you ever been wrong about anything?"

"Not about this."

"Just . . . please! Just look at him! Just see him!"

"I have no reason to."

"Just . . . take another look. Maybe you were wrong the first time."

"I wasn't. I can sense his presence even now. You wouldn't be asking me if you knew his true nature. If it were the human, your sister's mental torturer, would you be asking me for the same sympathy? It's just because he looks like an innocent rabbit that you want me to 'look at him.' Trust me, he's nothing like you. He's the human's agent."

"Then what's the harm in humouring me? What's the harm in just taking a look?"

"And what would that accomplish? It would give me the chance to finish him off."

"God, you  _are_  a monster."

He looked at her pensively for a moment and shook his head. "It's getting dark. You should be going back. They'll be worried if they think you've been kidnapped by the big, bad fox."

Quietly she turned and went back home.

-.-.-.-

Wallace Bennett sat looking at his computer screen as he poured over the last of the information Honey's teams had amassed.

The wolf sat in COR headquarters looking through the badger's most recent data dump in search of anything odd.

He'd recently been put in charge of Honey's inquest and was currently having his staff aides come to him with anything they found suspicious which so far was nothing.

Jack's review had also been handed to him as a result of Honey and Jack having worked together so closely. It had only been a few hours since his team had pulled the files, but already, Wallace was beginning to think he'd been handed a fool's errand.

The mysterious newcomer, dubbed "Silver" by the top brass, was reported to have the ability to read minds. To an extent. If Wallace had any doubt, all it took was another look at that security cam footage to remind him that the fox of whom they spoke wasn't your average mammal. Certainly, the being seemed capable of appearing and disappearing, but this ability to mind-read and to sense criminal or malicious intent was something that needed testing.

From Honey's description of the creature in her most recent missives, he seemed uncooperative and would likely shun any attempts by an organisation to test him in any way.

Which was understandable.

On the other paw, if no other evidence turned up, and all they had to go on was the word of this fox who had extra sensory perception, there'd be no helping it.

He sighed to himself and felt himself getting headache. It was a weak case and yet Honey, while advocating implicitly for Jack and championing his innocence, also seemed to trust the magic fox. At least in terms of his honesty and his general bent toward benevolence.

The wolf massaged his skull as he went through possible scenarios in his mind.

There was no doubt that this fact-finding mission was really nothing more than an attempt to place blame for the mishandling of Hopps' revelation somewhere other than with the leaders of COR. Finding one or two scapegoats would do the job nicely. Honey was a no brainer: Her reputation was tarnished already. At least within the public perception. And Jack's was running a close second, to say nothing of Hopps who was positively toxic to their image.

Honey had reported death threats among the Zootopian guard members against her, Hopps, and Jack.

Further investigations from leaders in other surrounding regions had reported the same.

Not knowing the full story, of course, had led to some quick conclusions which included the ridiculous notion of prosecuting both Hopps and Honey for war crimes since both of them had been implicated in the Zootopian police-state nightmare. Never mind the fact that neither of them had actually killed anyone or done anything against what COR had ordered; never mind that their actions had actually saved lives, Hopps' propaganda campaign against preds had worked  _too_  well.

Among those surveyed in the organisation, Hopps was seen as a bigger villain than either Swinton or Bellwether: Hopps had been more visible and was more closely associated with the evils of that city.

If nothing else was the result of the inquest, it was that Hopps had to go. Sinister machinations abounded when it came to the bunny: She had done their dirty work for them and now, in order to preserve the unity of their organisation, they were looking to dump her.

And Honey had vouched for a creature—this silver fox—who grievously attacked one of their own. It hadn't been an incompetent thing to do given the fact that the newcomer demanded such a wide berth, and yet it could certainly be painted that way.

Cutting Jack, Honey, and Hopps loose would take care of COR's issues in a second. It would give the three of them the freedom to act as free agents, providing, of course, that Jack recovered from his injuries which, Wallace had recently learned, seemed terribly unlikely.

Kicking the three of them out of COR, however, would also leave the three of them without protection if an attempt were made on their lives for any perceived sign of complicity with the evils of the city.

With Hopps, really, it wasn't a matter of  _if_  so much as  _when_  she was killed. The way Wallace saw it, if team members of COR were willing to defy a superior officer's order, choosing to abandon a carefully planned mission and openly threaten another officer's life, he had no doubt that worse was heading their way. The next time that happened, Hopps might actually die at the hands of one of her own subordinates.

And what would  _that_  do to the group? COR would be pitted against itself with two sides fighting it out over those who'd see her death as warranted and those who'd see it as needing punishment.

Hopps was going to have to go.

Unless the top brass decided to bite the bullet, stick by their convictions and keep Hopps and let COR splinter however it wanted with groups going their separate ways. It was a real possibility. But would the resulting group—or groups—be willing to work with a COR that was seen as loyal to Hopps? If the very reason for their dissociating from COR had to do with the dislike of Hopps, would they work with COR if they were perceived as having sided with someone whom they viewed as one of their oppressors? And what did that mean for their ultimate goal of Zootopian unity?

Forget COR, the tiny bunny could very well fracture the city in the aftermath of victory over the forces currently running it.

If they remained as fragmented as they were at that moment, they might not even be able to win the coming battles.

They faced elimination, and all because of one bunny.

One option the he knew the top brass  _had_  to be considering was simply putting Hopps on the frontlines of the coming battles and hope that the problem solved itself.

Wallace let out a sigh.

Fortunately,  _he_  wasn't the one tasked with sorting out the moral pitfalls they were facing. His job was just to figure out whether a crime had been committed: Whether Jack had betrayed them and whether Honey had been an accomplice, but he knew that that was ridiculous on a fundamental level.

The only thing that didn't quite check out from Jack's past was a car crash that he said had killed his parents but had left him relatively unscathed in the aftermath. The good medicine he'd received had left him with nothing but a scar along his arm.

There was just one problem:

Records indicated that there was a car accident around the time that Jack was around five or six, but there was no indication of Jack or his parents having been the drivers. There were no hospital records for Jack that indicated his ever having had any extensive injuries, either.

He let out another sigh and scratched behind his ear for a moment before finally buckling down and getting back to work.

-.-.-.-

Honey heard a small pop as she sat in the middle of the small common room and looked up.

The stress of the last few hours had clearly eaten away at her. Seeing the fox that had just materialised in the room with her didn't really help matters. The anxiety of playing a waiting game in more ways than one had been eating away at her.

She quickly put up the mask and became the image of her commanding self. She was unable, however, to wipe away the vestige marks of worry on her face.

The worst thing about facing the inquest in a few days was that there was nothing she could do except spin her wheels as she waited for the hours to tick by. She was used to being able to do something about the fact that she was in trouble.

She had taken the measure of putting Hopps along with Jack's team off the investigation. They were now working solely on reading what had been left on the USB drives and sending the information to the proper wing of COR.

It was a veneer of normalcy on what was turning into a big pile of shit for her.

The fox said nothing as he looked at her.

She could feel him picking off her surface thoughts and feelings and found she didn't care. There wasn't anything she could do about that. The fox needed to be in the know, anyway. She had a hunch that a leadership change was coming down the pike and the fox had to be prepared for it.

There was one thing she could do, however.

"Come with me to see Jack. I want you to come with me to see him," she said as she rubbed her face. She looked up at him blankly.

The fox returned her unemotional stare. "Were you the one who sent Fay after me?"

Honey knit her eyebrows. "What? Judy's sister? No. Why?"

He shook his head. "No reason." He paused as though considering something.

"I need you to see him if for no other reason that I need you to look inside his mind and tell me when he met with the Human." She sighed tiredly. "Then we might know where to look for concrete evidence. If I can just give COR something concrete, it might look a little bit less as though I were collaborating with a traitor."

"You don't really believe he's guilty. You still don't believe what I say," he said flatly.

"I really don't know what to think. Jack is . . . a pretty sincere male. I spoke with him earlier."

"He's a known liar."

"So you say, but I told you that I needed more to go on. I'm not contradicting you: I'm not telling you that you don't sense the mark on him, but at the same time . . . I  _know_  that there's got to be something that I missed." That  _you_  missed, she added mentally.

When he snorted, she knew that he'd felt that thought, and yet he did nothing.

"Fay spoke with me earlier," he said as he turned to Honey. "I'm not a monster. You know that."

"What I know and what I'm experiencing are two different things." She stood and walked toward him. "Things are out of control at the moment. The situation's at a breaking point."

"You just want me to read his mind so that you can play the part of a big hero. It's self-serving."

She shook her head firmly. "No, that's not it. Everything in our organisation at this moment comes down to the fact that we're all in a state of doubt. And now, we're even starting to doubt each other. If nothing else, you can see that the situation, if it's allowed to get any worse, is going to be bad for you and your designs. All I'm asking you to do is clear up one."

He didn't move.

"Won't you at least go see him?" came a voice from behind them.

Both mammals turned and looked to see Fay standing in the corridor.

"Fay?" asked Honey.

The little bunny came forward slowly, the sound of her feet as she padded across the room to them echoing off the wall in the ocean of silence that seemed to surround them.

"You say that he's going to betray us, right? Just go see him at least. You might see something else."

"I already know he's well guarded. I wouldn't be able to see anything more than what he lets me see or what he leaves unguarded on the surface of his mind," the fox replied.

"Did you read anything off him when you first saw him?" asked Honey.

The fox nodded. "Nothing but what you described in terms of his personality," he replied.

Honey gaped at him. "Well then why did you doubt what you saw?" she asked, stunned at the revelation.

"Because of the mark on him."

"Come see him!" implored Fay. "Please. Just see him!"

Honey said nothing, gritting her teeth in anger.

"If nothing else, it would be good to know when he met the Human," continued Fay.

"I wouldn't be able to see that even if I wanted to," he said calmly to Honey. "I wouldn't be able to see anything he didn't want me to." He let out a sigh. "But I'll go," he said to Fay. "If it'll make you feel better," he finished.

Fay nodded and led the way through the tunnel, through the main common room, and into the hospital wing.

They walked past the administrator as Fay stepped near the ramp.

Slowly, they made their way up, Honey taking last place.

The nurse monitoring Jack jumped slightly at the sight of the fox as he stepped in. He looked fierce and yet at the same time there was an air of melancholy about him.

"Kate," said Fay as the beeping of the heart monitor filled their ears, "would you mind waiting outside, please?"

The nurse nodded slowly as she let her eyes roam the trio before scooting along the side of the wall and exiting the room, closing the door behind her.

Jack was awake and eyed the three of them.

His gaze landed on the fox and he took a sharp breath.

"Honey, what the hell? Why'd'you bring him in here?"

Before she could answer, the sound of pounding feet and agitated voices reached their ears.

"-no you can't go  _in_  there!" came the nurse's voice an instant before Hopps burst into the room.

She took in the group, her eyes finally settling on Fay.

"You need to leave. I told you that I don't think it's a good idea for you to be with him!" She turned her gaze to Honey. "And why the hell is he even in here?" she said, gesturing to the fox.

Honey sighed. "I'm trying to get him to tell me when Jack met the Human."

"I never met him!" croaked Jack.

"Liar," said fox.

"Enough!" said Honey, silencing both of them. "Judy, why are you even here?"

"I just asked my cousin how Jack was doing and she said that you and Fay went up to visit him, but when she said that  _he_  came up here too, I got worried."

"I hope that wasn't on my account," replied the fox.

"Don't play dumb," she replied. "The last time you met with Jack you tried to kill him."

"And Honey made me promise not to  _against_  my advice," he retorted.

"Do you trust him?" asked Hopps as she looked at Honey.

Honey look back. "That he's not gonna kill him? For now, yeah, I do."

"I didn't  _do_  anything!" Jack replied.

Pounding footsteps again interrupted them and Nick and Judy dashed in.

"What's going on?" asked Judy. "We heard a commotion in here."

The silver fox rolled his eyes. "Gee, a committee, how wonderful . . . ."

Nick closed the door behind them.

The six spread out around the room.

"What's going on in here?" asked Nick.

"Not much," replied Silver. "Fay and Honey wanted me to come up here and see Jack. Now that I've done so, I can be on my way."

"Hang on!" said Honey, "Can't you at least try reading him?"

"He wouldn't give me access to his mind! Even if he did, it would be to selected portions of his memory. He can't be trusted."

Jack looked at the pair of them weakly as he tried to sort things out in his mind. "What're you talking about?" he said as he looked at them.

"He has the ability to look into mammals' minds and see their memories," replied Honey.

"Seems like a pretty useful ability!" said Hopps as she looked at Silver.

"Shouldn't he have used that  _first?_ " asked Judy she looked at the trio. Setting her sights on the silver fox, she continued, "Don't you think it'd've been a good idea to check and make sure you had the right mammal before you tried to kill him?"

"I sense the human's mark on him. Is there something about that that you don't understand? He could  _only_  have received that mark due to physical touch. That means that he  _had_  to have met with the human. And why meet with him for any other reason than to betray you? And not only that, the mark acts as a homing beacon for the human."

"Killing him wouldn't have solved that!" returned Honey.

"He's leading the human and his army right to you and you don't think he deserves to die for that betrayal?"

They were quiet for a moment as Jack looked up at them.

Nick finally spoke up. "Maybe going right after Jack and trying to kill him wasn't the right move, but I get that his heart was in the right place by trying to protect us."

" _Nick!_ " exclaimed Judy as she looked up at him. "You can't really think that!"

"Hey, I'm not saying he did the right thing, but I'm just saying it's understandable!"

"No," replied Judy. "It's not understandable. Innocent until proven guilty is a doctrine in the law for a reason!"

"And what are we supposed to do?" replied Nick, imploring Judy to understand him. "What are we supposed to do when we're facing an enemy that doesn't play by the rules? Judy, I was nearly  _killed_  the first night I came here! Don't you remember that? And now we find out Jack, who was supposedly our ally, was actually working for the Human this whole time and infiltrating COR? Do you realise what can happen now that the Human knows where we are? They could come straight to the house and kill your whole family!"

"I . . ." Judy felt herself wavering. Nick's argument was persuasive, but she couldn't shake the gut feeling that he was fundamentally wrong. No one had the right to act as judge jury and executioner.

Before she had the chance to respond, Silver let out a sigh. "At last," he said looking at Nick, "someone who really understands my position." He turned and looked down at Jack. "And that's why this meeting is over."

"Wait," said Jack weakly. "I didn't do anything!"

The silver fox looked at the rest of them, sighing again. "If you'll excuse me," he said as he turned to leave.

Suddenly, Jack jolted his arm out and grabbed the fox's paw. The silver fox turned quickly as though to attack him but suddenly stopped.

Quickly, the others rushed forward to see what was happening. The silver fox remained still for a moment, and so did Jack.

"What's happening?!" asked a panicking Fay.

"Shh!" hushed Hopps gently as she put an arm around her sister.

The whole thing lasted a couple of seconds but it seemed like an eternity: Jack's heart rate spiked on the monitor and his breathing became more laboured.

Fay screamed and jumped back as the scar he bore on his arm  _spread_. Nick and Judy leant in for a closer look along with Honey as Jack winced seeming to struggle painfully as the tendril seared its way down his arm like a windshield crack.

The silver fox sneered and growled, but not at Jack. It seemed almost as though the fox were looking  _past_  him.

And then their hands disconnected.

Jack seemed to be spluttering for a moment, taking shuddering breaths as he looked up at the fox. He grabbed his arm painfully and went into a coughing fit before speaking.

"What was that? Who the hell was that?!" croaked the bunny.

"Who was who?" asked Honey as they all pressed in to look at him.

"Don't question him now," said the silver fox softly. Wordlessly, he reached forth and placed his paw on Jack's chest.

Jack took several deep breaths before he felt his breathing calm.

They all watched as a glow spread from the silver fox to the bunny.

He removed his paw a moment later.

In a kind of shock, they all watched as Jack arose of his own accord.

Honey felt herself chuff before regaining control of her emotions. "You're healed," she breathed.

Fay eyed Jack and Silver carefully as they remained nearly side by side before voicing her question. "Does that mean-?"

"He's innocent," finished Hopps.

Honey took a sharp breath and eyed the fox. "You  _told_  me that he had the Human's mark-"

"I did," replied Jack, answering for the fox next to him. "I had that thing's mark and I didn't know it."

"How . . . just . . .  _how?_ " asked Hopps.

"I . . . uh . . . I really don't feel like talking about it. I just . . . I have a lot to process right now." Jack looked at the alarm clock on the stand next to him. "It's still only six oh-one?" he asked.

"You were gone just a couple seconds," said Nick.

"How long did it feel?" asked Judy.

Jack shook his head gently. "I dunno. An hour.  _Maybe_  two. There was _a lot_  to sort through."

He seemed extraordinarily downcast for an animal who'd just been given his life back.

"Please," he said softly, "I need to just be alone for a bit."

Honey and Hopps almost made to comment but, after giving each other a look, thought it might be best to let him sort through things on his own before being asked to talk about them. They gave each other a slight nod before backing away from the bed and making their way toward the door.

No one could help looking at the silver fox as they made their way out.

Judy took Nick's paw as they walked down the ramp.

"I know what you're gonna say," said Nick after a beat.

Judy remained silent for a moment. "Nick, I can understand your perspective. And I can understand  _his_  perspective."

"I wouldn't have agreed with him, but he seemed so certain."

"Nick, he  _was_ certain," said Judy. "And Silver was right.  _Jack_  even said that he had the mark."

"But . . . ."

"There's gotta be something else," nodded Judy to Nick, following his thoughts. "He had the mark and that fox said that could only come through physical touch with the Human. But Jack's also innocent, which means what happened to him must have been done . . . forcibly . . . ."

Both of them shuddered at what that might possibly have been.

"But then why didn't he just tell us he'd met the Human?" asked Nick.

She shook her head. "Maybe it was so traumatic he blocked it out? I don't know. But . . . there's something that's kind of sneaking in my mind . . ." trailed Judy.

Nick nodded. "You're thinking it was a trap? For Silver?"

Judy stopped and nodded slightly. "That's what the sneaky gremlin in my head is telling me. I'm probably wrong, though, because who can make plans that far in advance? And if Silver  _had_  killed him without reading his mind, there would've been no way for him to know if the soul he'd killed were innocent. Maybe it was just an added bonus for the Human."

Nick nodded as they walked on.

"Hey, though," he started again, "I'm sorry for the argument back there."

"It's fine. We both had a lack of information. We just sort of have a difference of opinion there."

"No," stopped Nick as he looked at his mate, "we don't have a difference of opinion. I get it, alright. I'm a cop. I'm an officer of the justice system. I wouldn't've become a cop in the first place if I didn't think the morals we uphold were worth preserving. Just because I can see things from his perspective doesn't mean that I think he was right for acting by himself."

Judy nodded and continued with him down the ramp.

As they walked, the silver fox stood at the top as he watched them chatting with each other.

"Could you please close the door?" asked Jack from his bed.

He was sitting up on the mattress in his hospital gown, pulling off the monitors and cords silently before laying back against the pillows.

He just needed to think.

Wordlessly, the grizzled fox nodded and closed the door.

-.-.-.-

Mayor Swinton stepped into the Human's office and closed the door behind her. The orange cast that illuminated her surroundings a stark difference from the standard grey and white of the prison outside.

She rubbed her eyes sleepily as she strode forward.

"Why on Earth did you call this meeting so late?" she asked before letting out a yawn.

The room appeared to be empty, but she knew  _he_  was here somewhere.

She stepped up into the area where he kept his desk and saw the French doors hanging open, allowing a slight breeze to come in.

She made her way toward them and stepped out onto the balcony. Her eyes searched for a moment before her gaze landed on him as he leant against the stone railing.

He seemed to be staring hard at the killing yard before him.

She followed his gaze, watching as the mammals down below power washed the concrete, the water drawing rivulets of blood into a drain on the far side of the concrete.

"Is this what you called me to see?" she asked, raising an eyebrow, "The remnants of another cull?"

She winced internally at the tone she took with him, expecting an immediate reaction but found him uncharacteristically silent in the face of her words.

When he remained quiet, she got worried. "What's wrong?" she said.

"We've got a problem on our hands," he said after a moment.

"What? What is it?"

"Do you remember I told you we had someone on the inside of COR?"

Swinton nodded slowly.

"We just lost him. Partially."

"What do you mean?"

"Jack Savage was our man."

She looked at him blankly for a moment. "Judy's lawyer?!" she shrieked loudly after the information sank in. "And why in the hell wasn't  _I_  informed about this?!"

"You would've gone after him."

"You're damn right I would've!" she shouted, her voice echoing off the concrete court below. "We need to attack our enemies! If I'd known I would've hunted down his family! We could've done  _something_  to stop him!"

"Fool. You have no perception! The game you play has victories with  _very_  little pay out! What good does killing him do save make you feel better about yourself?"

"Oh, and I suppose you had a better plan?"

"Always!" he snarled as he turned to her.

She squealed and backed away.

"You short sighted beast," he muttered, "I always have a longer strategy in mind! I've bidden my time for years—longer than you've been alive—to get to this moment."

She eyed him cautiously now, the bravado gone from her voice. "So . . . what was the plan?"

"To locate the nexus of the resistance."

"And you hadn't found it after all this time?"

"There were several possibilities, but now it seems my waiting had paid off," he said, giving her an annoyed look. "They're in Bunnyburrow. Surprisingly, they decided to house everyone in the same place."

"If they know that, they'll probably leave."

"Oh, they know. But further traceable movements are useless when it comes to Jack. Now that they know of the ability, they may use him as a reverse barometer against me. In any event, one thing I know and that's that Hopps' family are now implicated."

"So . . . you're saying it's time to go after Bunnyburrow?"

"You could easily make a case for it."

"There's no way I could!" she exclaimed. "Their rate of prey to pred is narrower than Zootopias was! The prey here would  _never_  go for it."

"Ah," said the Human, "but that was before they decided to give shelter to terrorists."

"What?"

The Human rolled his eyes. "We're currently in control of the narrative! We can spin this any way we want."

"And what are animals who have relatives in Bunnyburrow going to say when they find out that their relatives are fine and willingly did this?"

"Tell them that their relatives have been duped. Outthink them! Think of the answers before hand and you could bring this city together! Don't you see?  _This_  is what I've been needing! Do this, and it would be the perfect time to complete the task that was given to me."

"Which is what exactly?" she asked.

"You'll have to wait and see. But trust me when I say the rewards are well worth the sacrifice. You can easily spin it that the Happy Towners that were a threat to Zootopia now pose a threat to Bunnyburrow."

"And the innocent mammals in the way?" she asked.

"It may be necessary to kill them to set them free."

"This is way too out there," she said as she turned back to the warmth of the room behind her. "Nobody's gonna go for it."

"They will," the Human laughed. "Those who are controlled by fear are easy to control when you promise them all the answers. Every little thing you've pushed you've gotten. If nothing else, you could very easily make a case for invading Bunnyburrow in order to free them from the hoarding predators. And if we happen to find Judy and her entire family and kill them . . . well, that's just collateral damage. Can't unring the bell, as they say."

"A heartfelt apology would probably do it," she said, thinking.

He nodded as he turned back to look out at the yard.

"So what happened with Jack? How did he find out?" she asked.

"Let's just say that one of my former bosses had a hand in nearly killing him."

Swinton smirked. "Oh really?"

"Yes indeed. He looked so surprised to find that the poor creature was entirely blameless. If he'd killed him, it would have been an excellent weapon to use against him. He seems to find killing innocent people distasteful."

"You saw him? He was here?"

"In a manner of speaking. I went to him, really, when he found the mark I'd left."

She nodded slowly. "So, what's our next move?"

"You know that project I've been working on?

"The one you needed a panther for?"

The Human nodded. "We know that Wilde and Hopps are somehow linked to my nemesis, so now it's time to have my pet creature hound them."

"Won't they have moved?"

"Not if we act quickly enough. In three days time, Nemesis will indeed have more than one innocent life on his paws."

Swinton smiled and looked out over the courtyard for a moment before closing her eyes.

The scent of blood and wet concrete filled the air.

She took a deep breath and let it out slowly.

 


	17. Descent

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Jack goes over his experiences being healed; Wilde has disappeared with barely a word to anyone; Hopps has trouble coping with her guilt while Honey is trying to get things squared away for the impending move. On the other side, our villains in Searton prison begin hatching a plan to attack Bunnyburro

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Special Acknowledgement: First and foremost I would like to thank my editor Soildier for his help in preparing this chapter.
> 
> Author's Note: Hellow folks! time for another instalment!of one of the darkest Zootopia fics out there. I hope it doesn't get much darker than this chapter. Hard to believe that it's been a year to the day (May 31st) that I started this fanfic. I'm so glad that you all have stuck by me!
> 
> Hope you all like ithe chapter and continue to enjoy the work I've done up to this point!
> 
> I'm so grateful to you all! :)
> 
> General Statement: As I stated before, I welcome any and all criticism pertaining to the story. If I miss a bit of grammar here or there let me know so I can fix it. If there's something that strikes you a mistake or an error let me know so that I can fix that, too; and yes, I do fix mistakes that are pointed out to me. Speaking from personal experience, nothing can take me out of a story more than a misspelt word or a grammatical mistake—especially if they're too common. Any other comments, questions, or concerns? Feel free to PM me.
> 
> Disclaimer: This is a work of fanfiction and has no claim whatsoever on the characters of Nick Wilde and Judy Hopps who are the sole property of The Walt Disney Company. In no way have I sought money, monetary value, nor profit of any kind for the writing of this story.

* * *

 

_Jack reached out and took the fox's paw, barely able to shrink back in his broken state as it looked as though the fox were about to attack him, rounding on him like an angry wolf. An instant later, a microsecond before the fox reached him, suddenly his head felt light and waifish, as though it were floating on the lightest of breezes._

_Jack felt himself floating, sinking, down, down, downward into the darkness of his mind._

_He was flashing through the memories of his life, wandering and watching the scenes of his life unfold._

_He travelled backwards from his most recent memories to his earliest ones._

_At some point, he felt as though he were walking, and strangely, the further back in time he walked, the more he could feel what he could only describe as a presence following him. It was pervasive. He didn't know what it was, but it felt sinister and dark._

_The world around him was grey and drab, appearing to him like a kind of smoky fog that swirled around him._

_He fancied himself in a sort of hall of records._

_He went off to the side, into the darker realms and saw the fog clearing._

_". . . –s it so fucking hard to clean up your fucking mess!" a tall buck rabbit shouted at a child._

_Jack shuddered as he recognised himself as a kit and the taller buck as his adopted father._

_Jack rolled his eyes and turned away from the scene to see something more pleasant._

_He walked and the fog cleared again and smiled as he suddenly found himself in the offices of COR._

_". . . -y name's Agent Skye." The white vixen held out her paw, quirking a smile at the small mammal before her._

_Jack cringed slightly at the memory._

_His past self's ears were tinted pink, but his composure was quickly regained, his gruff personality coming out as he took the smirk as personal comment on his stature._

_God, he really had been smitten with her from the start, Jack thought to himself._

_There was a reason he was here, however._

_Honey had wanted that Silver or whatever he called himself to search through his memories for traces of the Human._

_Jack pondered to himself as the images before him faded away. He didn't even know what the Human looked like. He just knew that it was unlike anything that existed in Zootopia. It was nearly hairless, or appeared so save for fur on its face and down its arms—but it wasn't shaggy. And it didn't have a muzzle, according to Hopps, implying that its face was smashed in._

_He honestly had no idea how to picture it, and Hopps was no painter. Not a single sketch artist had been able to recreate what she'd seen with any accuracy, but those on which he_ **_had_ ** _gotten his paws looked positively horrific._

_There was nothing close to it in his memory._

_He continued on, as memories of seeing sketches of the Human appeared before him._

_He shook his head slightly and continued on._

_He very carefully stepped along, sifting through his memories carefully, letting everything come up to the open and feeling himself redden at some of the more embarrassing college experiences he'd had. He found himself pouring over his whole life, trying to figure out what it was that had the fox trying to kill him in the first place._

_Jack felt entirely alone, but nevertheless felt as though something were dogging him. Something sinister; and for the life of him, he couldn't figure out what it was. It felt like an odd gnawing in his gut telling him that something was wrong._

_He continued pacing, unable to help smiling at some of the more private memories he guarded._

_It took what felt like ages as he got through everything._

_And then._

_And then it just stopped, the way before him obstructed and tangled like a huge knot of thorns unwilling to give way._

_It was odd, he thought, but it was as though a great door were before him, blocking the way and he, on the outside, was left unable to get through it._

_The shadows tangled here more tightly than anywhere else._

_He felt a bolt of pain shock his brain as he tried to push forward against the clouds, the throbbing sensation assaulting his mind from every direction as he strove ahead._

_He grunted and felt himself collapse as the thicket pressed in around him. Somehow, he was able to see beyond the clouds pressing round him to memories of his parents and the happy times he'd had with them._

_He staggered to his feet and stepped away from the strangely painful area of his memory as he began to puzzle through what had just happened._

_Beyond the thicket of twisting clouds he had seen glimpses of memories of his life with his parents. The time after that, in which he was now situated, were memories of going home with his foster parents who would later adopt him._

_Which meant that within the thicket of knotted tendrils lay the horrific memories of the car crash that killed his parents._

_He looked around himself and called up the memories immediately before the pressing darkness._

_Strange that he had no memories of the hospital either. He saw images of himself waking up at his foster parent's home, of their initial meetings together, his questioning them about what happened to his parents—but nothing about his trip to the hospital._

_Perhaps those memories were locked within the darkness ahead, too._

_As that thought came to him, he watched with surprise as the dark clouds of memory almost seemed to tighten like thick knots._

_He reached forth a paw, drawn in as the clouds of smoke seemed almost touchable . . ._

_"Cease!" shouted a harsh voice._

_The rabbit jumped and turned in quick surprise to find the silver fox looking straight at him._

_Jack immediately adopted a fighters stance as the fox advanced._

_"I'm not here to harm you," said the fox easily._

_"_ **_You're_ ** _the one who's been following me!" shouted Jack._

_"I've been following you, but I doubt it was me whom you were sensing," the fox replied easily as he stared at the cloud. "Tell me you don't feel it coming from there," said the fox as he gestured to the darkness behind him._

_Jack gave a quick look over his shoulder but quickly returned it wearily to the fox, afraid of what would happen here. It was one thing to have damaged his body, there was no telling what might happen to him if the fox chose to damage his mind._

_"I'm not gonna turn my back on you," said Jack stiffly._

_"If I were going to harm you, I would have done it already."_

_"I don't know what the hell you're playing at. You attacked me out of the fucking blue. How the hell do I know what you might be planning."_

_"I didn't attack you for no reason. I attacked you because I felt the human's mark on you."_

_"And did you see that I don't fucking have it?" said Jack as he practically snarled._

_"You do have it. But not how I thought you did."_

_"You said that I met with the Human!" shouted Jack. "You told everyone that I'd betrayed them! You turned people who were closest to me against me! And for what? I_ ** _never_** _met with the Human and I_ ** _don't_**   _have his mark."_

_The silver fox strode forward slowly, sighing as he came nearer. "You do have the mark, and you_ **_have_ ** _met with the human."_

_"I haven't!" shouted Jack. "We've just been through my whole fucking_ **_life_ ** _!"_

_"Calm yourself," the fox said as he came closer._

_"I'll calm myself when you tell me what the fuck is going on!"_

_The fox gestured to the swirling clouds. "That's the mark." He then pointed to the scar on Jack's arm. "That's the physical remnant of it."_

_Jack swallowed and slowly lowered his stance._

_"That . . ." said Jack as he turned slightly to regard the darkness behind him, ". . . is when my parents died. It was so traumatic that I must have blocked it out."_

_The fox shook his head gently. "This isn't that. These knots've been tied tightly. I've seen a mind with buried memories before—this isn't that. This is . . ." said the fox, shaking his head lightly as he stared at the blockage before him, ". . . unnatural. Someone did this_ **_to_ ** _you."_

_"But this is the same spot where my parents would have died," Jack affirmed._

_The fox continued to peer into the darkness, pondering as he looked deeper into the tangles of shadow._

_At last, the vulpine seemed to come to a conclusion._

_"Try going in again," he said, turning to Jack._

_"Last time-"_

_"I saw. Did it hurt you?"_

_The bunny nodded._

_"I'll be right behind you. This is your mind, so you need to lead the way, but I'll be right behind you."_

_"What-"_

_"We're gonna cut through this nonsense and figure out what's been going on and where you got this mark."_

_Jack nodded slightly._

_"How are you on pain?"_

_"I can deal with anything," said Jack._

_"There's no shame if you need me to go ahead."_

_Jack frowned as resentment pooled in his gut. "No," started the bunny. "See, when you broke my back?_ **_That_ ** _hurt. I'm sure that I can deal with anything comparable to that."_

_The silver fox said nothing but only looked at the bunny blankly, as though expecting him to continue._

_Instead, Jack merely sighed. "I thought you said you needed me to go ahead, anyway."_

_"I don't_ **_need_ ** _you to," started the fox. "It's just that since this is your mind, it's easier for me to cut through this dark area of you mind. I can do it myself as long as I have your permission to continue, but the going is a little harder than it needs to be, and I don't know what lies ahead. It'd be in my best interest to conserve as much energy as I can."_

_The bunny nodded slightly. "Then let's hear no more about it. Let's go."_

_With that the bunny turned toward the now-tightly knotted shadows and waited to feel the fox fall in behind him._

_He took a step forward._

_The another._

_And felt a certain resistance, as though he were walking through a bog that were giving way beneath his feet._

_He trudged forward and let out a grunt as a high pitched ringing sound gradually assaulted his ears, a sudden headache splitting his mind as he pressed on._

_Jack let out a grunt as he continued, barely able to hear through the splitting roar in his ears as the silver fox encouraged him to continue further._

_"Fuck!" shouted Jack as the throbbing pain began to render him blind. "Fuck! God, oh, shit! Fuck!"_

_He felt the pain splitting and cracking down his skull, tearing at his flesh as the scar on his arm began to throb._

_"Keep going!" growled the fox. "We've got it! We've almost got it! Just a little more!"_

_Jack felt himself roar with agony as he felt his bone give way, his skull splintering at last like shattered glass as he felt his scream echo through the darkness._

_Feeling as though his unseeing eyes were bursting from their sockets, his rattling teeth breaking, as though his entire being, flesh, bone, muscle, and sinew were bursting at the seems of creation as his essence dissolved into agonising nothingness._

_Distantly he heard the fox screaming for him._

_"Don't go! Don't go!" he heard the fox shout._

_But there was nothing he could do. He had been dissolved and broken into pieces as the howling darkness swept him away._

_-.-.-.-_

_And suddenly Jack was walking down a grey corridor flanked on either side by two mammals._

_He turned and looked up shyly at a stag in a black suit leading them._

_He turned to his right to see a stern-looking rhino urging them onward._

_**"Them?"** _ _thought Jack._

_He looked around and saw . . . and saw his parents walking just ahead of them._

_They strode forward with a stiff gait that suggested fear._

_He opened his mouth to speak, fear sinking in the pit of his stomach._

_His father quickly turned and shushed him._

_He reached out to take his mother's paw but bumped into her as they stopped in front of a brown door, its rich colour the only point of focus in the drab surroundings._

_The door clicked as it opened, and the three of them, ushered by the two guards and the porter, stepped into what looked like a spacious anteroom in what appeared to be a spacious office filled with warm lighting and rich wooden features._

_The porter, a ram, stepped out and closed the door behind him, leaving the group of five alone in the room._

_Jack watched as his parents took some stiff, halting steps forward._

_It was then as he looked around that he truly appreciated his surrounding, a horrible sinking feeling in his gut forming as realisation hit him._

_Everything was too tall!_

_He looked around himself more fervently, hoping this were some kind of dream but stopped when he caught a glimpse of himself in the glass of a locked bookcase._

_He was a child again._

_His heart began pounding and immediately, he turned to call after his parents but found his tongue stopped._

_Instead, he felt himself bidden forward._

_It were as though an unseen force were drawing him forward._

_Jack cringed as the force compelled him, a slow realisation burning in his mind that if this were a memory—buried or otherwise—his actions would be unable to change it._

_Time relentlessly pulled him forward._

_"Mom, what're we doing here?" he heard himself say. His voice quivered as he padded forward quickly and huddled behind his mother._

_"No," she said as she turned slightly, kneeling down to look into his eyes. "Don't come up here. Just wait for mommy down there."_

_Her voice was meant to be calming, but experience had taught him much about reading nuance, and in his mother's eyes he clearly read fear and horror._

_"Do as your mother says," his father chided lightly as he turned to look at them._

_"Let him come up," said a voice. "This concerns him as much as it does you."_

_His parents turned to see behind them._

_His mother's breath quivered. "I think it's best tha-"_

_"If you cared about what was best for your child, you wouldn't have put him in this position," came the voice again._

_His mother seemed glued to the spot._

_"Stand aside and let me see him!" roared the voice._

_The order echoed off the walls, shocking Jack as he felt his little body press itself against the railing of the steps. Automatically, he started balling in sheer terror from the voice._

_Immediately, he ran back down the steps and tried to make it for the door._

_Before he could even reach it, a swooping pair of arms caught him up, and Jack found himself face to face with the stag as he guarded the door._

_"Please . . ." his mother said as she started forward, opening her arms as she came down the steps to take her son back._

_"Stop right where you are and face me. Save your 'Oh, Gods,' and your 'Please don'ts' for someone who has the patience to listen. As for me, you've used up your supplies."_

_Jack turned from the stag to look in his mother's direction._

_Jack let out a scream at what he saw and quickly turned back into the stag's chest as he huddle in fear._

_Up on the landing, sitting behind a desk, was the most disgusting creature he'd ever seen._

_There were no words to describe it, instinct told him to fear it. Something in the aura surrounding it told him to be afraid._

_Jack peeked back and watched as his parents both turned, and watched as his mother strode back up the steps._

_He huddle back into the stag as he heard them begin to speak._

_"Did you honestly think either of you would be able to get away with aiding COR?"_

_"We haven't been," came his father's reply._

_"Don't lie to me. I know you have been. A well informed source told me of your well-planned defection."_

_"We aren't defecting!" said his mother. "We've been loyal to you since this whole thing began."_

_"You're telling me," started the strange creature, "that Sarah Bellwether is lying."_

_The silence was deafening._

_"If that's what Sarah told you," said his father, his voice halting, "then_ **_she's_ ** _probably the one who's defecting."_

_The creature laughed. "I know that that's not true."_

_"Haw can you be sure?"_

_"Because she told me you'd say that."_

_He could practically feel the floor drop out from under all of them._

_"That's not enough . . ." trailed his father._

_Jack turned slightly to see the three of them standing together._

_"No," said the creature as he reached down, "but this is." He held up what looked to be a carrot pen in his hand._

_Both his parents' ears drooped as the conversation is played back._

_**"We're leaving that freak for good,"** _ _came his mother's voice._

_**"I don't think that that's a good idea. What if you get caught?"** _ _came another voice._

_**"We can do it. We've got it all worked out. We've got the latest plans and we're planning on turning them all over tomorrow night,"** _ _came his mother's voce._

_The creature stopped the recording._

_"I think you've heard enough," he said as he stood and came around the desk, his towering form looming over them._

_"So, the question is, how do you want to die?"_

_Jack watched, moonfaced as his parents suddenly clutched each other._

_The creature looked toward him and the stag._

_"Bring me the child," said the creature flatly. "I wish to make a meal of him."_

_"No!" shouted his mother as she broke away from his father._

_Without a second thought, the looming creature easily punted her across the room._

_She crashed into a bookcase, her body crumpling onto the floor as broken shards of glass rained down on her._

_"Jackie!" his father shouted as he ran to her._

_She moaned and clutched her chest as she staggered to her feet as she came toward the centre of the room, her husband helping her along._

_"Please," she breathed as she spat blood from her mouth. "Please, don't hurt my baby."_

_The terrified couple trembled as the creature leant down to their level. He smiled grimly at them as he nodded his head._

_"I can live with that," the creature said. He pointed a finger at the doe. There was a loud bang like a lightning strike that clapped loudly in the air._

_Jack watched as two streams of blood blasted from her back._

_"Jackie!" his father cried, shouting her name._

_She sank to her knees, burbling as blood bubbled from her mouth._

_A second blast disembowelled her, entrails spilling out behind her as she fell back onto the ornate Oriental rug._

_The buck clutched her paw as he watched the light leave her eyes._

_"You!" he shouted fiercely as he rounded on the Human. "I swear to God, if I find a way outta this, I'll torture you!" shouted the buck as he got to his feet. Crimson gouts covered the whole left side of his face as he managed, tiny mammal though he was, to look down his nose at the creature before, him._

_The Human looked down on him pitifully. "Don't be so stupid," he said, almost sadly._

_In a flash, the buck was on his back as the creature's palm slammed down into his chest, his fingers digging into his flesh as his combined weight and strength began to painfully break his ribs, the sickening popping filling the room as the buck's agonising screams filled the room._

_"I really don't think you'll be doing any such thing," the Human continued. "I intend to toy with you for quite a while," he finished, his sickening grin leering down at the bunny. "You mark my words, this isn't the end of our encounter. At the moment," he paused as the bunny wheezed beneath him, "I have other things to deal with, and I want to_ ** _savour_**   _this more than you could ever know. But just so you have some idea of what's in store for you, when I'm done with your wife here, I will seek you out, and_ ** _peel_** _you."_

_He let off the broken rabbit._

_"Warfield," he called to the rhino, "take him down to the infirmary. I want him alive when I get around to him."_

_The rhino came forward and picked up the buck by his hind legs and carried the struggling mammal off._

_"Wait!" he wheezed painfully. "Jackie!" he shouted, twisting before wincing in pain as the rhino carried him out of the room. "Don't leave her ther-"_

_The door closed._

_Jack trembled in the stag's arms and hid his face into his chest as the creature came forward._

_"Are you going to kill him now?" asked the deer._

_"Not yet," the creature said. "He may yet be of use to us. Let me see his arm."_

_Jack whimpered as the stag forced his arm outward._

_The creature grabbed his forearm with a jerk, a sudden burning sensation searing its way up his arm like lightning._

_Jack let out a shriek as tongues of pain consumed him before the thundering voice of the creature before him rung out through the room._

_"Forget!"_

_The word echoed in his mind as darkness took him._

_-.-.-.-_

_Jack sucked in a deep breath and found himself lying on the floor of the creature's personal office._

_He had no doubt as he lay there that the creature he'd seen was the Human. As he looked around, he noticed that the guards were gone. There was no one about._

_He pushed himself up on his elbows, gasping in pain as he did so. His whole body felt as though it had been tenderised._

_Looking around, his breath caught as he saw the Human, sitting at his desk and writing. His mother's body was still lying a few feet away, her blood seeping into the carpet and wooden floor beneath her._

_Jack took a shuddering breath as he got to his feet. He felt completely drained of energy and wanted nothing more at that moment than to simply leave the memory he was in._

_His eyes searched the immediate area in vain for the silver fox. Where the hell was he?_

_His eyes landed once again on his mother's corpse. Her eyes were clouding over, indicating that she'd been dead for some time._

_How long had he been out?_

_He shook his head gently before looking at his mother's body again._

_The scent of blood was metallic and sweet in the air, and positively nauseated his vegetarian instincts._

_He looked down at himself and found that he was in his adult body. So the memory was over, and he was in control of his faculties again—Thank God for that!_

_He took an aching step forward. Then another._

_He wanted to see her up close. He wanted to see her and pay his last respects in at least some small way._

_As he came nearer, he glanced at the Human: The mammal was positively hulking!_

_He slowly padded up the steps, the wood creaking beneath his feet as he reached the landing._

_Still, the Human didn't move. The vile creature paused, seemingly in thought before continuing._

_Jack took his eyes away and turned left._

_He saw her body, open and defiled._

_Fury burned within him as he looked on her. She'd been gutted, the vision of her torn body searing itself into his mind as he looked on her._

_But suddenly, fear began pounding through him, his heart speeding up as he suddenly felt a sinking sense of horror and dread pervade the atmosphere._

_Unbidden, he began to tremble, his anger giving way to a petrifying fear._

_A terrific ache suddenly throbbed in his brain._

_He let out a tiny grunt and closed his eyes as a flash of memory sparked in his mind, the vision causing his heart to seize._

_The room tilted as the image of skinned rabbit, bloody, spluttering, and hanging by his feet from a hook burned itself into his brain. The lights around the gagging rabbit flickered quickly._

_Jack collapsed, retching as the awful scene swung like a pendulum in his mind._

_He shouldn't have these memories._

_He opened his eyes, wondering what was going on: He had never seen his mother from this perspective, never truly seen the way her body had lain—He also knew that he'd never seen the horror of what had been done to his father._

_He retched again as the horrific vision of his father's death hit him again._

_Crawling slightly, he used the banister to get to his feet desperately trying to cut the awful scene from his brain as he stood there gasping . . ._

_But if these weren't his memories, whose were they?_

_The thought suddenly petrified him._

_These weren't his memories. They were someone else's, and he knew whose they were._

_He began to tremble slightly as the dawning realisation sank in on him._

_Slowly, Jack turned his head over his shoulder. The Human crouched right behind him._

_Jack stood bolt upright and pressed himself against the banister as his breath left him in a wheeze as a flood of fear and anxiety washed through him, adrenaline pounding through his blood._

_Before he could do anything, the Human reached out like a snake and gripped his forearm._

_Jack let out a shout of pain, the limb as though it were on fire. He looked on painfully as the scar on his arm deepened, burning its way down._

_"Fuck!" shouted Jack. "Fuuuck!" he twisted as he tried to jerk away._

_Suddenly the Human let go, letting out a chuckle as the bunny collapsed._

_"You stupid creature," he said as he looked down at Jack. "You made a big mistake by coming here to uncover these memories."_

_Jack only gasped as he lay on his side, gripping his arm as he clenched his teeth in agony._

_"Did you really think that I wouldn't notice what you were doing?"_

_In a lightning quick motion, he kicked Jack in the chest. The bunny shouted as the force of the blow smashed him through banister and sent him skidding across the room._

_"You really made a mistake by coming here," said the Human again as he came down the steps, entering the foyer. "If you haven't figured it out yet, we're still in your mind. You did a wonderful job of uncovering the mark I left on you. Unfortunately for you, it leaves me with the ability to completely destroy your mind. But before we part ways for good, I have a little gift. You know your father was alive when I skinned him?"_

_The Human stretched out his hand. Jack flinched back and stiffened._

_And then the worst happened as terrifying images of his father rose up in his mind._

_The Human laughed as he strode nearer._

_"He didn't go stoically did he?" he gloated. "You hear him scream so loudly it would have shattered the ear drum of a lesser mortal."_

_Jack screamed in terror as the images played themselves again and again in his mind._

_The horrified look on his father's face, his screams as he begged for mercy, the sounds of tearing flesh and sinking fingers battered his sanity as even the scent of his father's blood filled his nose._

_"Stop!" shouted the bunny as he tore at his skull. "Stooooooop!" he shouted in a long cry as he tried to block the sounds from his mind and he shouted._

_At last the images ceased._

_Jack gasped on the floor, the throbbing pain in his arm lessening, as he heard the vile being kneel next to him._

_"Those were a few memories from my perspective," murmured the creature, his eyes glowing with red malevolence as they bore into Jack's. "If I had more time, I'd torture you with_ **_his_ ** _perspective—I have those memories too. I savour them like fine wine." The Human paused as he sneered at the heaving bunny. "It's really too bad that your parents had to betray me," he continued. "They were really so inconsequential, their deaths so sadly pointless. Upon reflection, their defection wouldn't have affected my plans in the slightest. I don't even really remember them all that well, to be honest. Well, except for one thing:" said the Human sinisterly as he leant into Jack's ear, "They were delicious."_

_Impotent rage and righteous anger flooded Jack's soul as he jerked his head back to fully behold the monster before him._

_If he were about to die, Jack figured, he wanted to see it coming. He wanted to look his parents' murderer in the face and carry the hatred with him forever._

_"You won't die," said the Human as he read the bunny's thoughts. "You'll just be a vegetable for the rest of your life. This is your mind we're in—everything in here is metaphorical. When I destroy it, when I destroy_ **_you_ ** _, there goes your psyche."_

_Jack clenched his teeth and growled in anger. "You fucking bastard!" he groaned out. "Your days here are numbered. We_ **_will_ ** _defeat you!"_

_The Human only laughed, manifesting a knife. "Oh, you think so?" he said as he rose to his full height. "I highly doubt that. You know you've led me right to your friends? A mistake on your part since now they're all in danger. Sorry to say, but one way or the other, Hopps and her family—all of them—will be the first to go. I have weapons at my disposal you haven't even begun to dream of."_

_"Fight me fairly!"_

_The Human laughed again. "No. Are you out of your tiny little mind? If you had the advantage over me that I have over you, now, you wouldn't think twice about exploiting it. These are the rules of engagement, Little Savage. This has worked out perfectly for me. My guess is that your group is doubting the one who injured you. When you come out of this nothing more than meat sack, they'll blame him, and they'll never trust him. His warning that you're leading me to Bunnyburrow will go unheeded until it's too late. Of course I can't let you go—you'll tell and I'll lose my advantage."_

_"You son of a bitch!"_

_The Human ignored him as he turned. "I wonder how long I can drag this out for? Then again, I really am expecting someone and I_ **_must_ ** _get on with it."_

_The Human took a few paces back as Jack wearily followed the figure with his eyes._

_The Human tossed the blade in the air a few times, seeming to heft it. The Human was just toying with him, and Jack knew it._

_The bunny took a few more deep breaths and flinched as he felt the sudden spark of electricity in the air._

_The knife flew, whistling through the air._

_Jack closed his eyes as the blade aimed straight toward his face. When nothing happened, when Jack realised after a few seconds that he wasn't dead, he opened his eyes._

_The blade hung in midair, suspended._

_His eyebrows knit in confusion as the knife began to fade into dust._

_Indeed the whole space around him began to collapse and disintegrate._

_The Human merely chuckled as he looked at the rabbit._

_"So . . ." spoke the monster slowly, "I see you have help."_

_Entire portions of the room they were in began to fade into dust as the shadowed land of Jack's mind began to peek through the cracks._

_In a blast that blew out an entire corner of the room, the silver fox appeared, the room shaking violently now as a tormented wind howled._

_"Jesus fucking Christ!" shouted the bunny, "how long have you been standing there?!"_

_The fox said nothing as his blazing silver eyes regarded the Human._

_The room was falling apart, blasting apart at the seams as chunks of the Human's reality disintegrated into nothingness._

_"You're nothing here anymore!" came the Elder's voice like a roaring canyon fire. His tone was subdued and controlled but its volume shuddered the walls and shattered the panes in the French doors._

_The hurricane-like winds picked up and broke the bolted doors out of their frames, the tormented howls from the gaping wilderness outside a reflection of the torment of Jack's mind._

_"You will yield!" said the fox, his voice bellowing and distorted as it thundered through the room._

_Jack trembled as the wooden floor beneath him began to break apart, the slats of wood falling away and disintegrating into nothingness._

_The Human snarled and fought against the tide as he tried to reach the fox._

_"This is_ **_my_ ** _reality!" said the fox as he drew forth his blade._

_With a single, wicked swipe he slashed a gaping, spherical black hole in what seemed to be the space itself._

_Instantly, the room shuddered, the wood furnishings creaking as everything slid, bent, or flew into the void._

_"You are now nothing here!" said the fox. "And you will never harm him again!"_

_"Nemesis!" shouted the Human as his feet slid on the floor, the pull of the black hole too great as it drew him into it, vanishing the monster without a trace._

_Without the Human, the rest of the room shattered, disintegrating quickly as it was pulled into the vortex._

_Jack cried out, as he himself slid across the floor. He dug his claws furiously into the wood, scraping it deeply even as it disappeared beneath his fingers, leaving him scrambling at nothing._

_Through sheer perseverance, he managed to reach the doors to the office which had been flung open to reveal the darkness outside. He grunted as he heaved himself outside and was met with a shock._

_The atmosphere was completely still, the raging storm unable to touch him._

_Jack grunted as he dragged himself the rest of the way out and collapsed in a heap, gasping for breath._

_He turned to look behind him and felt an acute sense of danger as he watched the room continue to break apart, getting smaller and smaller as piece by piece, fragment by fragment, it disappeared into the anomaly until there was nothing left but the void and a very lonely looking fox standing in relief against the smoky backdrop._

_The black hole shrank in size until it too vanished._

_Jack lay on his side, heaving deep breaths as he looked at the silver fox. The vulpine was turned away from him and seemed to be staring blankly into the nothingness._

_"Where were you?" asked Jack. "How long were you just standing there watching him torture me?"_

_"Almost the whole time," said the fox slowly._

_"What the fuck?" Jack asked between gasps. "Why . . . ?"_

_"Because I needed to gather all the strength that I could to banish him and his little sanctuary in your mind completely. If I hadn't, it could have grown back."_

_"It took that long?"_

_"It wasn't long in the scheme of things. For a moment, I thought you were merely reliving a lost memory. It took me a moment before I realised what was really going on."_

_"Which was?"_

_"The memory was a trap. It was a gate that was meant to trap you in the Monster's world. There were a number of things he could have done to you. He could have kept you as a prisoner of your own mind for the rest of your life, turned you into a psychopath, into a murder. He could have made you his instrument."_

_"But he said he wanted to kill me. To make me . . . a mindless vegetable."_

_"So that the blame would fall on me," replied the fox. "What did he show you?"_

_Jack didn't want to think about it but couldn't help it. At the mere suggestion, the images of the memories he'd seen swirled out of the clouds._

_Silver growled menacingly at the images until they faded back into nothingness._

_Jack breathed heavily as he tried to blink the vision from his mind. "He skinned him alive. He-"_

_"I saw," growled the fox in a low voice._

_Jack struggled to his feet._

_"I'm sorry," said the fox, his voice becoming softer. "What you witnessed was a horror. I can't even begin to imagine what you must be feeling; but right now, we have to go."_

_Jack struggled to take a few steps forward, the pain in his arm throbbing with a dull ache._

_"I have to say," said the fox as he regarded the staggering bunny, "that I'm . . . completely impressed with you and your fortitude. The landscape of your mind," he said as he gestured around him, "is barren. It's been polluted by the Human. He must have been keeping you on his radar for a while."_

_"How's that impressive?" asked Jack._

_"Because it didn't pollute your character. You had some dark moments in your life here and there, but nothing out of the ordinary. I watched as you searched through all your memories. I saw them all. You've managed to stay stoic and resilient in the face of the dark force assailing you."_

_"I didn't even know it was there," Jack said._

_Silver nodded. "I know. And now his stronghold on you has been removed, but the mark is still in you. It's pervaded everything in your soul. Like a cancer you didn't know was there."_

_Jack spat. "Get it out of me! Can you get it out of me?"_

_The fox nodded carefully. "I can, but it'll be excruciatingly painful."_

_"I don't care!" shouted the bunny. "I don't want anything that belongs to that fucking cannibal anywhere near me!"_

_Silver nodded again. "I can understand your feelings, but that's going to have to wait."_

_"Why?!"_

_"Because your mind, body, and psyche are still too fragile. Already, I'm working to try and stabilise your mind and soul. It's why we don't feel the storm," the fox gestured. "You've been dealt some heavy mental blows and seen traumatic things that should never have been a part of your memory in the first place. Your mind needs to heal from that before it does anything else."_

_Jack nodded._

_The fox continued, "We're in a no-man's land right now as far as your mind is concerned. You probably won't remember any of this right away."_

_"When I go back-"_

_"It'll be just after you left that Monster's room. Or feel that way. You're going to need to relax and you're going to need to be alone."_

_"But I'll remember?"_

_The fox nodded in response._

_"How long will it take for my mind to heal? I wanna get his mark off me. You're sure you can't do it now?"_

_"Not without killing you. Probably."_

_"You're sure that's not what you wanna do with me anymore?"_

_Jack was surprised by the fox's silence. Finally, "No. Not anymore," he said._

_Jack nodded. "I'll take your word for it," he said cautiously._

_The fox sighed. "It'll be some time before you're completely healed. You're going to have to take some time to mentally recoup yourself."_

_Jack nodded._

_"If you ask that hot looking female—Skye?—over to spend some time with you, I'm sure she'd be amenable," the fox winked._

_Jack wanted to smile, but he felt entirely humourless at the moment. He appreciated the attempt, and under normal circumstances he might've laughed. But his emotions were too raw, and his fury still too great, that he was unable to enjoy the light jab. Even the sense of horror and revulsion he'd felt were still too deeply imbedded in his heart—laughter felt wholly inappropriate to him._

_He nodded to the fox in thanks, however. If nothing else, he'd be happy to simply spend time with Skye. It would no doubt do him good._

_Jack jumped when he realised the fox was right next to him, holding out his paw which Jack accepted hesitantly._

_"Are you ready?" asked Sliver._

_Jack nodded slightly._

_"Brace yourself."_

In a flash of white light, he was back. And now, he sat alone in the wake of the others having left.

His mind felt at the point of breaking. He felt as though he should do something and yet knew that he could do nothing.

The delirious memories and sensations swept through his mind's eye. The traumatic psychic injuries causing him to flinch as harmful images and disturbing illusions bubbled to the surface.

In spite of everything, he could sense in the centre of his mind the calming presence that he knew must be the work of the silver fox.

As strong as he was, he never felt so fragile as he did at that moment. Not even when he'd been on the brink of death only minutes ago. At least then he had a will. A firm sense of direction. He still had those, to be sure, but he felt those aspects fading in the background as the horror took control of his mind.

Silver had been right: He wasn't himself at the moment, and he wouldn't be for quite some time.

What he really wanted was to not think. To get on his phone and do some light reading about some nonsense or other. Maybe solve a puzzle or two or play some random game. At the same time, however, he felt too lazy to get out of bed and ask for his devices.

It was probably for the best, anyway. He realised he felt positively exhausted.

He yawned and stretched slightly. He didn't want to sleep, knowing that worse was waiting for him in his dreams.

But he wasn't a buck afraid of a challenge. The only way out was in.

He closed his eyes, breathing deeply, as sleep assailed him within minutes.

-.-.-.-

Hopps lay stretched out on the bed in Honey's room, sighing as she looked over at the badger who sat at her desk, staring at her laptop screen.

"He didn't even tell us where he was going," said Hopps in a slightly annoyed tone.

Honey hummed in response as she looked down at her phone. "He  _did_  tell  _me_. After the fact, of course," she said, turning around to look at the bunny. "He sent me a text but we were occupied with-" she thought of the silver fox sitting outside in the common room and cut herself off. "Well . . . we were just occupied," she finished as she nodded at Hopps.

The bunny nodded as she looked at the door. Putting one arm behind her head, she looked at her phone to check the time. It was late, and there was more work to be done tomorrow.

"Anyway," Honey continued, "your cousin said that he was going over the roster of survivors and that's when he saw it."

"His son's alive?" asked Hopps carefully.

Honey quirked a smile. "He saw his name on the list. There're a lot of mammals at the hospital at the moment, and they probably still have to process him, but they'll probably be back in a few hours."

Hopps hummed. "It's all going to shit," she said.

The comment took Honey by surprise. She frowned and furrowed her eyebrows as she regarded the bunny from across the room. "What're you talking about?"

"Everything," replied Hopps, sighing.

"No," started Honey, "seriously," she said as she brought her chair closer, "what're you talking about specifically?"

Hopps took a deep breath before speaking.

"You're under scrutiny," said the bunny regarding her friend. "And it all has to do with me."

Honey pursed her lips and looked at her pensively.

"I know that the inquest was started because of Jack," said Judy, "but he was just the straw that broke the camel's back. Sooner or later, it was going to come to this. I just . . . didn't get it . . ." she trailed as she stared hard at the badger across from her. "I don't think you understood it either. Just how bad this plan was."

"You were my in," said Honey. "You were the only mammal with enough access to do what COR needed you to do. The top brass gave me an assignment: Find someone with access, with either Bellwether or Swinton's ear, and turn them."

Hopps looked over at her. "You did a good job of that."

"By pointing out the truth," Honey insisted. "They would have killed you."

"And you used that to exploit me," unable to keep the moody tone from entering her voice.

"Did I? Or did I also feel sorry for you? I'm not generally in the habit of letting people die if I can help it. Whether you worked for me or not, I needed to get you out of their paws. If they killed you—which you know they were aiming to do—they would have used your death as a moment on which to capitalise their power and consolidate support against the city. Sure, I'll be the  _first_  to admit that that was a primary objective, but it's not like I saw you like a hunk of meat or a piece of machinery!"

Honey stood up quickly and started pacing the room.

The badger stopped and turned her head suddenly, giving Hopps a hard look.

"What should I have done instead? No matter who I picked, it was going to have to be someone with a lot of status in Swinton and Bellwether's ranks. Who should it have been? You tell me who," said Honey.

Hopps let out an exasperated sigh as she stared back at the ceiling. There were several candidates, but none met the specific criteria she herself had. Honey could have chosen one of them, sure: But then how would she have turned them? How would she have incentivised them to break ranks?

Only Hopps had occupied the no-man's land that she had. Hopps had been the obvious pick: close enough to City Hall while also being on its shit list. When she was shown the evils of City Hall and how high the levels of corruption ran, her moral compass would never have let her go back to them.

If she had felt no such threat coming from the higher ups such as Coal or Rhinowitz, would she have been as open to Honey's suggestion? She liked to think so but wasn't overly optimistic. Certainly, the moral plight of the preds in the city was a troubling one that'd had her on the edge, in a more moderate position. She likely would have been swayed by Honey, but she could never know for sure, now, and that was part of her current dilemma: Was she really evil?

Had she really been that much of a cog in the wheel of what Swinton and Bellwether were doing? She'd told herself that what she was doing was necessary: that stepping out of line would have gotten her killed. And what would have happened then? All those mammals whom she could have saved would have died, and she was the only one on the police force with her range of access, her position in the department with the ears of both Bellwether and Swinton—and also in their confidence, who was willing to spy on them and rescue civilians right under their noses. Such a confluence of circumstances wasn't something Honey could've found just around the corner.

And yet the bunny couldn't help but doubt herself.

Hopps' rise to fame had been auspicious: Honey knew enough about her from reading the papers and watching news interviews at the time to glean that the bunny was one soul that had been bent toward doing good.

"You know and I know," started the badger, "that you were in a unique position."

"But did I have to be the star model the city wanted me to be? Did I have to be the face of their propaganda campaign? Maybe there was something that I could have done," replied Hopps.

"How would you have done that without raising suspicion?"

Hopps shook her head. "There must have been a way."

"Maybe there was and maybe there wasn't, but you made a judgement at the time, and you weren't wrong for that." Honey sighed and sat back down. "I've made bad calls too. You more than anyone know how badly I can fuck up. But I made the best decision I could with the information that I had. I've made calls in my younger days that got people killed, but it was the best call that I could make. I could either live my life in regret for making the call or I could resolve to do better. When I first went to COR command with my pitch to recruit you, you could hear the groans! But I saw something in you that I thought was of value—so they made a call, too. And told me to go ahead with my plan and that you'd be my responsibility. Cut to two months later, after the Cull, and you were achieving fantastic results and providing huge amounts of intel! I made the right call when I picked you and I stand by it."

"You know they see us as a liability."

"COR has an image problem—it's trying to get preds on its side and they've seen you as a demonic force for so long."

Hopps bristled and looked back up at the ceiling.

"That's the way they've seen you," continued Honey, "and that's a tough perception to change. And sure, I'll admit that I made a mistake there with my expectations, but I couldn't let mammals go on thinking you were a murderer and had actively participated in the city's oppression when you hadn't. Your actions speak for themselves."

"I've turned an entire city against preds! I was  _part_  of the problem!"

"While also being a part of the solution! Alright, fuck it!" shouted Honey as she stood up, "how many individuals have you executed?"

Hopps sighed and turned away. "None."

"How many deaths have your ordered?"

"None."

"How many individuals did you save?"

"I don't know," she replied tiredly. "I'm too tired to count."

"More than one?" pressed Honey.

After a beat, Hopps nodded. "Yeah, more than one," she said with a hint of terseness in her voice.

"More than ten?"

"Yeah," she said as she looked at the badger.

"More than thirty?"

"Yeah."

"Then admit to me that the reaction to you is undeserved!"

Hopps paused. "I . . . a little, maybe. I just can't help feeling like I've done a lot to hurt things, too!"

Honey only stared at her. "Judy, there are mammals out there who want you  _dead_. You don't think that that's a little unreasonable?"

"I'm responsible-"

"No you aren't!" said Honey loudly. "The last time I checked, the death penalty was a punishment reserved for murderers of the most unrepentant kind:  _You_ , on the other hand, haven't murdered  _anyone_."

"And you don't think that propaganda campaign that I was a part of was at least responsible for  _some_  of the deaths that took place?" returned Hopps.

"If they hadn't used you, they'd've used somebody else! Judy, the reason preds hate you is because you're a symbol of everything that's wrong with the city. They're angry, and punching against you feels like a punch against Zootopia. But you  _can't_  kill the Devil with a gun or a sword, and the sooner the mammals of this organisation and everywhere start realising that, the closer we get to saving  _you_  as an individual."

Hopps took a deep breath as she let it all sink in.

"Don't buy in to your own myth," Honey said calmly. "You're letting others' perception of you cloud your focus."

Hopps sighed and let the silence linger between them. At last, she quirked a slight smile. "So . . . you're saying I'm not the Icon of Sin?"

Honey smiled. "Definitely not. But I understand your position. You did something morally questionable to survive in the midst of a bad situation while also helping me out. It's a grey area set in the middle of some extraordinary circumstances, and extraordinary circumstances require extraordinary measures sometimes. As far as things with you go, we're gonna have to engage in some heavy duty iconoclasm."

Hopps giggled slightly before wiping her face though she still felt a strong sense of unease in her chest.

Honey smiled slightly but looked down in thought as still had some sense of unease about the bunny in front of her. Thoughts such as those the bunny entertained could easily lead to another downward spiral. Hopps had a conscience too delicate and sensitive to wrongdoing. Seeing the way the bunny's otherworldly counterpart reacted to the injustices of this world, even standing up to Silver and her own mate for their near justification of Jack's treatment before the truth had been revealed had done a lot to show Honey just how strongly both bunnies' moral compass aimed at pointing true north. When untouched by those asking her to do things that were morally questionable, anyway.

The badger sighed as she contemplated Hopps' situation for a moment: Zootopia had chewed her up. Even Honey herself had had a hand in that. But how else was one supposed to survive in this world? Hopps' double had the luxury of living in a world untouched by darkness—where the expression of her true self wouldn't have gotten her killed. Red, on the other paw,  _did_  have such an experience. In fact, all preds did. And Hopps, though not a pred, had had to cultivate just such a thick outer wall in order to protect herself in much the same way as they all had. But even Wilde and Red manifested their methods of subversion in totally different ways. Red, in his old world, had been able to be smooth and lax, carrying himself in an easy manner, where Wilde essentially had to go completely underground.

As Honey pondered these things, she let out a soft sigh and looked at the bunny. "What brought this all on?" she asked. "You're not usually this moody, I know. You've been thinking and ruminating."

When Hopps said nothing, Honey continued. "You need to stop punishing yourself. What's done is done. You did the best that you could and made mistakes. That happens. Individuals make mistakes. So you were involved in a propaganda scheme: You're hardly a mass murderer. You're not a terrorist. You were undercover. "

Hopps still said nothing. Finally she let out a breath, turned her head; catching Honey's eye.

"You asked me what brought on my mood?" said the bunny slowly.

Honey nodded but guessed what it was even before the bunny could say.

"It's because . . . his kid's okay."

Honey nodded sagely. "Go on," she prompted.

Hopps took a deep breath. "It's just that, when I heard the news, it was like . . . I don't know . . . like a weight lifted off me. I didn't know I was even carrying any," she said with an air of confusion in her voice.

"Guilt, you mean?" asked Honey.

The bunny nodded. "Every time Nick looked at me," she said, referring to Wilde, "I could just feel him blaming me for his son's death."

"You wouldn't have been to blame, anyway."

"But I  _feel_  it!" said Hopps. "It's like a fire, burning me."

Honey let out a sigh and stood up. She walked over to the seemingly small creature on her bed and took a seat next to her.

"One thing you have to understand is that when individuals are hurting, cut to their hearts with feelings of loss and sorrow, their reactions often go in one of two directions: Resignation or anger, and from anger usually to lashing out or blame. That's what a lot of mammals—what a lot of preds—are feeling right now. They're angry and they need something to hit. They want to hurt something and make it feel as badly as they do.

"You're on their radar now and, like I said, in their minds a punch against you is a punch against the city. Even though you have no real involvement, harming you in some way would make them feel vindicated. You're a symbol of what's wrong in their lives and their victory against you would be just as symbolic: Hollow and made of sand. They would hurt you and have a day— _maybe_ —to celebrate before the Human, Swinton and all their cohorts would come marching into town, steamrolling everything. Their anger won't lead them anywhere."

"You should know, Little Miss Hot Temper," snarked Hopps.

The badger let out a quick sigh and nodded. "I won't lie that I have a bad temper. The worst, and you know why," said the badger pointedly.

Hopps almost gave the badger a pitiful look before quickly wiping the emotion off her face.

"That's all the more reason why you should trust me," concluded the badger. "I've had more experience with anger and hatred than others have had in entire lifetimes. It's made me mean. It's made me arrogant. It's made me selfish. This is what happens over time when you let negative emotions rule you. On the other paw, my anger and my hatred for Zootopia have also made me a damn good leader. I use my anger to drive me, but it's a hell of a task keeping it from blinding me. These past ten years at COR have been the furnace that tempered and restrained my fury. Not completely, but it's leaps and bounds ahead of where it was."

"What does this have to do with the other's anger toward me?" asked Hopps.

"It's misplaced. And no matter how much of it they direct your way, you have to remember that, as a symbol, people think they know who you are already. They feel like they could read you like a book. They don't know that there's actually a living breathing mammal behind the façade of 'Judy Hopps.'"

"How do you want me to combat it?"

Honey shrugged. "By getting them to spend time with you. It's why I put the others in a permanent group with you and part of the reason why I started you out on their team in the first place. I wanted them to start to get to know you as an individual. There's no way anybody's going to take my word, or Jack's word, for that matter. They need to have a chance to get their own sense of you."

Hopps nodded slightly before closing her eyes and taking a deep breath.

"Hey," said Honey. "You ready for sleep?"

The bunny nodded and sat up slightly.

"You want me to walk you to your room or . . . ?"

She shook her head. "I'll be fine. I may just want to take a short walk, too. I'll see how I feel."

Honey nodded and went back to manoeuver her chair back to her desk.

"Good night," said Hopps as she reached the door.

Honey nodded. "Night! And . . . hey . . ." she paused, momentarily at a loss for words. "Just . . . try not to let them get to you, okay?"

Hopps nodded pensively, but didn't meet the badger's eyes as she pulled open the door and left.

The badger watched the spot where she had stood for a moment before turning to her desk and putting her head in her paws.

-.-.-.-

Silver sat in the small common room alone. He was in a pensive mood, and those who entered the room for any reason had only to see him before beating a hasty retreat.

The door creaked as it opened. Silver didn't bother looking up as Hopps stepped out into the common area. His gaze was focused on the ground as he heard the door close and her footfalls pad along the wooden floor.

She slowed slightly as she passed him before pausing momentarily, unsure of what to say but feeling as though she had to make an effort. She didn't want to come off as though she were passive aggressively ignoring him.

Another part of her, the part of her that was still feeling slightly depressed and uneasy about the conversation she'd just been having with Honey made her acutely aware of what she imagined the silver fox in front of her might be experiencing. He was guilty of the same thing she was—harming other essentially innocent mammals in an attempt to do good.

Only about a half an hour ago, she'd been furious with Silver for the unwarranted actions he'd taken against Jack—hadn't she been guilty of the same thing in some way?

Telling herself that she had never actually made a direct attempt on someone's life in the same way that the fox had did nothing to change her feelings. Even if the circumstances weren't exactly alike, she still felt as though she could sympathise with his predicament in some small way.

"Honey's right," said the fox suddenly, startling Hopps out of her reverie. "You shouldn't blame yourself. You did what you could. You had to think quickly. You had to fight to survive. Such desperate situations force and individual into having to think quickly—and when you think quickly, sometimes you make poor choices." The fox looked up at her. "You survived. Don't ever regret that. You're no good to anyone if you're dead."

"I don't really feel particularly good to anyone  _alive_ ," she giggled.

That was dark even for her. If the fox across from her had been a psychologist she'd've just set off alarm risks. Her past with suicide attempts gave the words a sharper edge than they might have had. As cheerful as she was trying to be, she felt as though nothing less than honesty would do for the fox before her. No, she wasn't a danger to herself, but her mind and conscience felt quite sick. There was nothing to be done about that, though. She simply had to push though it and carry that guilt with her.

She took a step back when Silver suddenly arose.

He walked over to her slowly and, when he stood before her, tilted her chin upward to look at him.

"Don't wet your pillow with tears just because some people don't like you," he said softly. "You're a good rabbit, Judy, and I want you to remember that I told you that."

He removed his paw and turned to walk down the tribute.

She followed him with her gaze and sighed as he disappeared—no doubt to patrol the grounds as he'd taken to do doing.

"Right back atcha'," she said.

With that, she faded into the darkness.

-.-.-.-

The following morning brought a flurry of activity.

The night before, Honey had stayed up late writing emails and contacting higher ups in the organisation as well as updating other members as to the latest news: Jack had been cured and Silver had been mistaken regarding Jack's alleged sinister intentions. Silver had  _not_  been wrong about the fact that Jack was carrying a mark which allowed the Human to hone in on their location. While she was still looking for a new facility to move their headquarters, she was now also asking other COR teams for reinforcements: The Hopps' house was now in danger and high on Zootopia's radar, and if something weren't done soon, they'd be nearly defenceless in the face of an attack.

The responses she received the following morning were indicative of a need to further investigate Jack about his mark. Especially since his position in the organisation could have given away all of COR's safe houses.

She skipped over the nonsense about the oversight hearing with her, Hopps, and Jack, perusing until she saw the she was looking for: Backup was on its way from several corners still on friendly terms with her and would be arriving with extra security equipment.

 _"So, they're giving us better weapons, finally . . ."_  thought Honey.

Troops would be making preparations that day and be arriving at some point tomorrow either in the late afternoon or early evening.

It was later than she would have wanted them to come, but she also understood she'd given them short notice. Until then, she was going to need to rely heavily on Silver.

Silver! The thought of him had caused her to hang her head in her paws.

The debacle with Jack was a major fucking cock up that had managed to severely shake her trust in him. He had caused her to doubt herself about Jack which was infuriating enough. Where she would have been surefooted, she had begun to doubt her senses. More than anything, she was furious with herself that she had let him do that to her.

She sucked it up anyway and drew him aside the moment she was able to get a hold of him some time after breakfast, just as she'd been about to head out to scope potential locations for COR's new foothold in Bunnyburrow.

The conversation, though Spartan on his part, was useful in that it broke what had been, to her, an awkward silence between the two of them since last night. She thought sidestepping any mention of Jack was best in favour of the more pressing issues.

The topic of the inquest had come up and, as predicted, he snorted at the notion of having to give any kind of testimony. Nevertheless, serious doubt had been planted in the minds of many as to her ability to continue to lead effectively. If she had lost the authority and pull that she had, then that was going to be problematic. In particular, she had mentioned her concerns about Hopps.

"I want you, if you'd be willing, to keep an eye on her throughout the coming weeks. We're probably going to be moving around a bit now and, with all the new mammals around, I can't feel entirely certain that she'll be safe even in her own home."

"Why d'you decide to come to me with this task?" he asked.

"Because at the moment I don't have the ability to protect her twenty-four seven, like I'd normally try," she replied. "Now that I know there're threats to Hopps' life, you've gotta know that there are assassins out there who could easily take her out. Hell, Carrots's in danger, too. If someone mistook one for the other. Short of locking them both in hermetically sealed vaults, there's no way to fend off the threats they're facing: Especially considering any guard I might give the task of protecting either of them could turn out to be an assassin him or herself. You, on the other paw, I  _know_  have a desire to see both of them live. Or at least Carrots. I'm just asking you to add one mammal to your guard list during the day."

Silver looked at her for a moment, saying nothing for a moment. "To be frank with you, Little Badger, I'm surprised you'd even speak with me."

She shrugged slightly in response, an exasperated look on her face. "I was trying to avoid the topic of Jack, but if you insi-"

"Jack? I'm not talking about him."

"Then?" she asked with concern.

"The fact that you're moving out to spite me."

The words momentarily stupefied her. "Huh?"

"You think I don't remember you telling me that you were moving out because you didn't want to be around me? So, actually, I guess it does come down to Jack. I'll thank you to remember that I was right about him."

"Right abou- . . . . What?! He was innocent!"

"But I was right about the mark and right about the fact that he received it through contact with the Human."

"What?"

It was at that moment that he knew she hadn't spoken to Jack. He realised that she had no idea what had happened—had no idea what the bunny had been through. All she had seen was him insist on Jack's guilt and then moments later witness him healing the bunny. And while Jack had said that he had received the mark, the fact that Silver had healed the little mammal at all might have been misconstrued as an admission of total fault when in reality it had been a nearly fatal case of mistaken circumstance.

He still kicked himself for not having seen it: It was just like that monster to pull some evil machination like that.

All the same, he couldn't divulge anything further save what he'd already said. And from that, he knew the badger might be able to extrapolate a lot if she sat down and put her mind to it.

"Jack will tell you about it when he's ready," said the fox. "You were right that he was innocent, but I was right about his having met with the Human." He'd just said it, anyway. What was the harm in reemphasising it?

"And you don't think you have anything to atone for after nearly killing him? After paralysing him?"

"I have atoned for it. I healed the bunny, don't you remember?"

"And does  _he_  feel like you did enough? You put all of us though Hell."

"It was my intention to  _protect_  you all. It's obvious that I made an error with regards to his innocence. I didn't think it needed to be said that killing him and hurting him was a mistake. Obviously, if I had it to do over again, I wouldn't. But I would have taken him someplace to remove his mark."

Honey only stared at him for a moment before her eyes bugged out slightly, her mouth gaping as the shock of what he'd just said washed over her.

"He still has it?!" she whispered harshly as she gaped at him. "Why haven't you removed it?"

The fox sighed. "I can't disclose that." Before she could respond, Silver held up his paw. "It's up to him to tell you why. He'll tell you everything if he wants to, but until then, the things that I saw in his mind are too personal. They're his memories and his experiences. If he can't find his place to tell you what he experienced, then I can't, either."

She nodded slightly in understanding. "I still don't see why you can't tell me why you have to wait to take it away."

"To properly explain it I'd have to share something about him that he might not want me to share."  _For example, that he has some psychic damage he needs to work through,_  he thought.

Honey let out a sigh. "Alright, I'll leave it alone," she said as she held up a placating paw. After a brief silence, taking a moment to gather her wits, she continued. "What were we talking about again?"

"The fact that you have the gall to ask for my help after arranging to move to another location to spite me," said the fox, a slight undercurrent of bite coming out in his tone.

"That's not the reason anymore," she replied. "The fact of the matter is that when you told me that Jack was basically acting as a homing beacon for the Human, I knew we were gonna have to move. There's no way around this."

"The safest place is here," he said flatly, but Honey shook her head.

"There are too many civilians here. I can't risk them getting hurt," she returned.

"I can guarantee their safety."

"Even when the Human is coming for us?" she pointed. "I know you indicated to me that there was some kind of shield around this place—is it going to keep us safe from attack? You have to know that it's coming, and coming soon."

The fox looked away for a moment and took in the wide expanse of the grounds. The fresh air started to blow a chill wind as they seemed to be lost in thought.

He watched as tiny kits went off playing in all directions. He looked far afield and saw Jasper, Brandon, and some others working.

"There are reinforcements on the way," said Honey, "but they won't be here till tomorrow afternoon. Maybe evening. Even then, if an army comes marching across the fields and into the whole city, what recourse would we have?"

"The first thing I would do is contact city officials and see if you could get some fighting force on the ground," he said.

"Already done. Really, since the night of the raid, I've been in contact with city officials and let them know that reprisals would be immanent. Probably. The only good thing is that Bunnyburrow is sprawling, largely farmland. I mean, it's practically its own country." She sighed. "There are millions of innocent lives on the line. The National Guard here numbers in the hundreds of thousands, so really it's a matter of making sure they understand the gravity of the situation and positioning them appropriately. There's just so much that has to come together to make this right."

The fox nodded sagely. After a brief silence, "The shield I erected only keeps the Human from seeing us. Jack's mark effectively nullifies that, now."

Honey blew out a breath. "So, we're defenceless at the moment. I mean, we could try moving Jack?"

Silver shook his head. "The monster would likely recognise any attempt to move him as a gambit. He's aware that Hopps is alive—or he should have guessed by now." When Honey gave him a puzzled look, he continued, "There's no way Bunnyburrow with its millions of prey would have allowed preds into the city without some mitigating factor or factors. He's not stupid: the list of mammals who could turn the tide of such a carefully crafted propaganda machine from being against preds to being for them is  _incredibly_  short. He'd have to be a moron to not've guessed that it was Hopps who pulled it off.

"There are probably also those in the city working against you and COR," he continued, "and news would have run its way back to the city that way. There are so many ways for him to have found out that it's safe to assume he does."

Honey nodded thoughtfully. "It's better to err on the side of caution."

The fox gazed at her silently for a moment as he seemed to gather his thoughts. "At any rate," he continued, "the human knows that Jack is here—because he traced him here—and he knows that I injured him—so he knows that I'm here. Of course, he knows that Hopps must be here, too. He knows that you were involved with the raid of Zootopia and that you and Jack were probably together on that since it was such an important mission—so he knows you're probably here to work with Jack. If we moved Jack, the monster's focus would still be here if for no other reason than that it would harm Judy."

"While you have a point," she started, "that's all the more reason for us to move. We have me, Hopps, and Jack all here at the same time. Plus you and Red—we lose automatically if anything happens to him. Or you made it seem that way. Then there's Carrots—and she's a heavy hitter, too!"

"Take Carrots out of the equation," said the fox. "She's not a heavy hitter in any way: She and Red are a package deal and I want them out of the fighting."

"It doesn't matter how you slice it—alright, fine, Red and Carrots are a package: That's still too many heavy hitters in the same place. If we were attacked tonight, we would be defenceless."

"You underestimate me."

"I don't! I'm just being realistic: You can't be everywhere at once, can you? I know you would do your best, but we're looking at some  _very_  heavy casualties if things go wrong and it's a risk I'd rather not take considering there's a house full to the brim with small children and young teens plus a western wing entirely devoted to sick and recovering mice, and another wing devoted to civilians feeling from the desolation of Happy Town. This is going to be a huge fucking problem. I mean look: Supposing I do as you ask and we stay here—the next logical step is to protect the innocents in the house, right? What better way to protect them than to move  _them_  at least? The Hopps family and all."

"You'd seriously suggest moving these mammals from their home?" asked the fox.

"Of course not, but something has to give! I mean look, you said that the Human is honing in on us via Jack, and you and I both know from experience that this place is going to be hit one way or the other . . ." she trailed as an idea began to form in her mind. "That means that they're going to hit this house with everything they've got when they have the chance . . . . So they would have to move anyway if they wanted to avoid danger."

The fox just stared at her. "What are you suggesting?" he asked somewhat ominously.

"I'm thinking . . . that it might be a good idea if we  _all_  temporarily evacuated."

"That's not your decision to make."

She hummed thought for a moment. "At the very least, I need to bring up the potential risks and dangers of staying to Stu and Bonnie. This house is on the Human's map, now. They at least need to know that. I'll also be giving the family and everyone the option of leaving and putting them up somewhere with the means at my disposal. Or the Hoppses could stay with family."

"Or why not have the whole city evacuated?" he snarked.

"I would if I could."

"Are you that afraid of the human?" he asked as he cocked an eyebrow.

She let out a harsh sigh. "Not of him, no! I'm afraid of the innocents he could kill."

"Don't underestimate Bunnyburrow."

"I'm not. I'm just . . . thinking . . . ."

"Don't deflect: I know exactly what's going on. You're afraid of being responsible for the deaths of more individuals. The human has a lead on us now and you're struggling to play catchup with him."

She looked taken aback. "You think I shouldn't be worried about all the defenceless individuals staying here?"

"Trust me to have this in hand."

Honey bit her lip and looked down thoughtfully. "Alright," she said slowly as she looked back up at him. "If you're sure you have everything in . . . hand?" she asked.

"It's another word for paw," the fox smirked.

Honey nodded. "Gotcha. Alright." She blew out a slow breath. "Alright, so for now I have a rudimentary plan in mind. I still think we should get away from this area ASAP."

"That's not really any of my concern—it's for Judy's parents to decide that. Bring it up to them and see what they think."

"You don't have an opinion either way?"

"Let's just say I don't envy your position, Little Badger. It's a tough sell to these self-made mammals. They're farmers of the land, and their attachment to this earth goes deeper than the roots of these trees. Even if their lives were in danger, I don't think they'd leave. Not even for a little while. You're right that the little ones should be out of the way, though. Until then, I will defend this home and this land with my life."

Honey nodded thankfully and turned to leave before stopping herself.

"Hold on a sec," she said as she spun back to face him. "I meant to come here to ask you about keeping a sharp eye on Judy for me," she said.

" _Your_  Judy?" he asked.

The badger nodded tersely. "Yeah. Just until we reach a point where she's relatively safe."

"For the rest of her life, you mean," said the fox.

"I said  _relatively_." She knew that her little protégé would never be completely out of the woods, but she was hoping things would reach a point where Hopps would be in markedly less danger than she was at the moment.

He nodded stiffly in response.

"Thank you," she said. She turned from him and headed to her car.

As she backed out of the drive way, she sighed as she found to her total lack of surprise that the fox had disappeared.

She smiled to herself as she put the vehicle in gear.

-.-.-.-

It was evening, and the cold, late autumn winds were blowing around the chilled surroundings of Searton island. The landscape round about the towering walls of the prison was dead and dying, aching for winter's sleep. The gently howling winds were barely distinguishable from the moans of the captives within the walls of the prison.

In the brightly lit office at the top floor of the building, the Human stood in a darkly lit back room. He faced a wall adorned only with a mirror, and gazed into it, his blank reflection staring back as he blinked almost vapidly.

"Just get this over with," he muttered to himself as he reached forward, lightly touching the mirror before him. It began to glow lightly with a greenish-yellow cast.

He watched as the flickering light shining from behind the glass suddenly became transparent, his reflection fading as a shadowed figure, silhouetted as the darkness around him seemed to deepen.

"Anassa," he murmured as he withdrew his hand. "It's always good to see your face."

"Now, now," chided the feminine voice, lightly. "You know how I despise the old titles."

"You'll always be Anassa to me," he said in a low voice.

"Flattery will get you nowhere if you've failed," came the cold response.

"Failure is not an option."

"And yet you insisted on this meeting. Tell me, Servant, why did you break our custom?"

"We're at a crucial point and I felt your advice and prudent insight might be warranted at this stage."

A hush of wind was felt through the room. Without warning, the shades of blackness faded around the mirrored figure, and suddenly her face—illuminated brightly—shown from out of the shadows. More and more, her features revealed themselves as though the darkness itself were gathering together to form her body.

The Human sucked in a breath of fear as she revealed herself.

Her hair was short and black, curled tightly around her head. Her face was soft with angelic features, ivory white with rosy cheeks and a tender, innocent gaze. Her high cheekbones provided an air of elegance to her otherwise pacific countenance.

The Human gazed at her, momentarily wrong-footed as he watched her naked skin bare itself suggestively. The silken darkness seemed to cover her intimate areas in a soft veil that was nearly transparent. It appeared to wrap itself around her lightly and loosely like a bed sheet.

Her doe eyes looked softly at him.

"What were you sent here for if not to do exactly what you ask now of me?" she asked, her light, silken voice baring a strong steely undercurrent. "You ask for my advice on what to do when you were sent here in the first place because you  _knew_  how to complete the task set before you, were you not?"

He opened his mouth before quickly thinking better of it and closing it.

"Here I am at your behest," she started, "breaking our custom. You speak to me out of turn, had a message sent before me and requested an audience."

The Human looked down apologetically. "Anassa-"

"You dare to insist upon a title—a title recognising me as your queen—and yet you do me the dishonour of summoning me? As though I were a common servant?"

"If you f-felt the shame too great, you might have said nothing and refused to come." He was unable to keep the tremor out of his voice.

"I came, quite frankly, because this breech is so glaring on an otherwise unblemished record that I was forced to think that something might be wrong." Here she paused, her soft eyes penetrating him. " _Is_  there something wrong?"

How her voice could seem so soft and beseeching while hiding an underlying blade of threat and harm was beyond him.

"I . . . ." He felt his mouth dry up.

"Speak, Vanguard!" she said, her soft voice shattering the atmosphere and splintering like broken ice chips. Her innocent façade never broke, the only distress showing in her voice as it barely trembled: She did not shout nor raise her tone, but its tenor had the Human staggering back.

"Nemesis," he said. "Nemesis is here."

"Nemesis?" she asked, drawing out the name as though tasting it. "Yes, I believe you told me about him already. Searching for someone or other. Why is this news?"

"It was too important to pass up."

"Speak plainly," she said, "because I hate hearing old news again. I know that Nemesis has managed to break through. You told me that already"

"I know for a fact that he's with the opposition."

She eyed him emotionlessly. "And?" she prompted when he said nothing.

"And . . . is actively providing them assistance. Offering them protection."

"What is this to me?"

"My forces are as of yet unprepared."

"Do you have his location?"

"We do, and we know where his anchor is."

She paused at that news. "You mean . . . they're in the same place?"

"Yes, Anassa-"

"Stop calling me that! I'm Ellra, now. I see now why you called me Queen. You wanted to soften my response to you. In ancient days, we sweetened wine to hide the bitterness of arsenic. You didn't call me here for advice! You don't need me to tell you that if they're in the same place, an attack would do it. What do you  _really_  want?"

"If he joins the rebels-"

"He won't! He's focused on you at the moment because he knows as well we all do that if he takes you down he ruins our plans for another millennia. We _need_  this victory. So I suggest you make plans for an attack." She gave him a blank look as realisation dawned in her eyes. "But of course you already knew to do that."

"We're two days away from a revenant-"

"Two  _days_? What happened to the power we've given you?"

"I need weapons!"

"How many revenants have you lost already?"

"Your Honour-"

"How many?!"

He sighed. "All of them."

She let out a soft breath. "Was it  _him_?"

He nodded slightly.

"You ignorant fool. You weak worm! For the second time in nearly as many days, I have to appear before you and check on you like a baby. I expected you to have this in hand. But no, you lost your heavy knights, and now here you sit with a two day window in which your enemy,  _Nemesis himself_ , has the whole advantage."

"He will not attack me. He's too focused on them!"

"Do you dare raise your voice to me?" she asked softly, sounding fragile and forlorn.

He made to answer but found his words suddenly stifled as he sank to the ground.

Her eyes began to glow a darker hue as they shone on him.

"Speak to me again in such a dishonourable manner and I will wipe your existence from every dimension of every conceivable universe. Do you hear me, Slave?" she said in the same tone.

He nodded swiftly as the agony swiftly left his body. Staggering, he made his way to his feet.

"Nemesis is never too focused on anything other than his prime objective," she said. "If he's taking time to focus, even for a moment, on something other than what appears to be his goal it's because it ultimately serves him."

"You underestimate him," the Human gasped. "He has debased himself. You know this. We've seen it."

"He is no fool. It is  _you_  who underestimate him."

"I need to strike him. They're using my blood doll as a reverse barometer. They are well organised and they will move—if they have any sense—before my forces have a chance to strike."

"You seek a shallow victory."

"One that might take out his anchor."

"Might?"

"I'm doing my best."

"Which has been lacking. But enough of this: Our conversation has been winding. What did you really call me here for?"

He felt himself quiver slightly.

She looked upon him emotionlessly for a moment as she went through their conversation again in her mind when suddenly, " _How_  did you lose all your revenants?" she asked.

The long winded conversation had been obfuscation, she realised—a putting off of the inevitable. Something  _had_  happened.

"There was . . . an infiltration," he said at last.

She only looked at him a moment. "An infiltration?" she asked.

He bowed deeply for a moment before standing straight again.

He licked his lips. "Your Honour-"

"What  _kind_  of infiltration?" she asked.

"Speak!" she shouted when he said nothing. "And forget addressing my by my title! There is nothing reverent in your style!"

"Ellra," started the Human, "a group of those from Happy Town whom we expelled entered the city and collected sensitive information on the inner workings of our operation."

"What kind of information?"

"We don't know, but we know that recently there was a very large security breach within our ranks."

"And you tell me this only now?"

"We thought the breech had been sealed. We . . .  _I_  . . . thought that the leaks had been plugged. I had not accounted for traitors within my own ranks."

In a flash, she extended her alabaster arm and curled her fingers in a gripping motion. The Human threw his head back and sank to his knees, screaming.

She closed her eyes and forcibly tore through his mind as she pulled up his memories and poured through his thoughts and actions, particularly on the night in question.

She let her hand fall to her side as she looked on him. He was gasping heavily but quickly rose to his feet again, trembling.

"Look at me, Slave," she said.

He looked up as the shaking wore off.

"It is clear from your incompetence that you don't know what you're doing! Jack, the blood doll whom you mention, was in your presence the night of the attack yet you did nothing! You spread your forces too thin and were unable to make a successful attack! So now, just to show some muscle, you wish to make this small coordinated attack on Hopps—who is apparently still alive—and her family as a means of getting back at Nemesis and  _possibly_  killing his anchor, too?"

"They need to feel our wrath!"

"If you shout at me again I'm going to torture you for twelve aeons, do you understand me?" she asked, the iciness of her tone cutting him.

He nodded.

"Good, because torturing someone for so long usually becomes boring around the fifth or sixth."

He remained utterly silent as she thought.

"You're bungling this nearly beyond repair. We need the city on our side quickly. And we need you to be working both ends. How is that coming along?"

"They're ready, just a few hold outs."

"Make short work of them."

He nodded.

"It's true, as you say," she started, "that they need to feel our wrath, but I think I may have something better in mind than what you were planning."

He cocked an eyebrow in question.

"You have a knight in the works and some heavy hitters from your army, but with Nemesis there, you can expect him to sort them out in minutes. Even before they reach the house," she said.

"What do you suggest? Taking him out is impossible."

She glared at him. "You really are stupid, aren't you? He's not as unbreakable as you might think. Seek me again tomorrow and I may have a plan in hand for you."

"I have my own."

"Allow me to help," she said, a devious smile casting a sinister shadow on her features.

 

 


	18. Reunions

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Mike is back from the perils of his journeys. Rude surprises are awaiting the young tod as he makes his way back to the Hopps residence. Will Honey and the esteem he once held for her wash away in light of the news that she and Hopps have been working together all along? Only time will tell.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Special Acknowledgement: First and foremost I would like to thank my editor Soildier for his help in preparing this chapter.
> 
> Author's Note: Greetings everybody! Hope you enjoy the new chapter.
> 
> Things have been picking up in my life as I have a new job started. Things are going well for me, although this may change just how quickly things it updated. It's a possibility. In any event, I hope things are going well for you all, hope this new chapter finds you well, and especially hope that this chapter provides something of a breather from the horror of the most recent batch. Though this is something nasty waiting at the end of the chapter, this one here will be full of a lot of feel-good-ness but also a bit of interpersonal drama between the characters. Hope you enjoy!
> 
> General Statement: As I stated before, I welcome any and all criticism pertaining to the story. If I miss a bit of grammar here or there let me know so I can fix it. If there's something that strikes you a mistake or an error let me know so that I can fix that, too; and yes, I do fix mistakes that are pointed out to me. Speaking from personal experience, nothing can take me out of a story more than a misspelt word or a grammatical mistake—especially if they're too common. Any other comments, questions, or concerns? Feel free to PM me.
> 
> Disclaimer: This is a work of fanfiction and has no claim whatsoever on the characters of Nick Wilde and Judy Hopps who are the sole property of The Walt Disney Company. In no way have I sought money, monetary value, nor profit of any kind for the writing of this story.

* * *

Wilde sat in a chair in the entrance ward of Bunnyburrow County Hospital, his eyes and mind bleary from the lack of sleep he’d endured the evening before. He’d stayed up nearly the whole night, asking any and every nurse or doctor he could snatch away from what was undoubtedly an overburdened schedule about his son, emphatically stating that he knew his son was there, that he had seen the fox’s name on one of the many public registers.

It had been five days since he’d seen his son.

Five days since he’d first laid eyes on Judy Hopps. Or her double, anyway.  _‘Carrots, that’s right,’_ he thought.

It seemed like those events had taken place a year ago. She had walked into his office, playing cool, with no inkling as to what her double had been up to.

Her double!

His fist clenched as he thought of her.

She had been responsible for all of this! Her actions had nearly cost his son his life!

As he thought back on that day now, he shuddered slightly. He remembered that he hadn’t even recognised the little rabbit until Clawhauser had pointed her out.

And how on Earth would he have recognised her? With her cheery disposition, her gentle features, and kind heart, there was no way he would have confused her for the hardhearted female who’d made life miserable for all the preds in the city. Even standing side by side, they hadn’t looked anything like each other to his fancied mind.

The difference between them was startling. Thinking of Judy, even at that moment, he could see why his otherworldly self had fallen for her.

He growled slightly and shook his head, trying to clear it of the realisation that Hopps and her double really did look the same and that his complements to one were complements to the other.

He also didn’t like the feeling that he and Hopps were in any way ‘meant to be’ just because his double from another universe had taken to her. He’d be lying if he said, however, that that thought weren’t a persistent subconscious idea.

As far as he was concerned, many of his friends, and nearly his son, had had their lives taken from them in an attack on him and his establishment. He had to admit it, though, that Fangmeyer’s testimony had moved him. The impending reunion with his own cub had been made possible through Hopps’ efforts.

Wilde was still so incredibly conflicted over what he was supposed to feel. Her name and face had been synonymous with evil for so long that it was hard to imagine she was, in fact—apparently—one of the city’s greatest hopes. That she was a symbol of redemption in herself.

But that wasn’t right. It couldn’t be right, in spite of Honey’s words!

In his half dreaming state, Wilde tried to recollect Hopps in his mind. Every time she’d appeared on his TV, it had been to say something awful or to announce the declaration of some terrible law or other that was going to restrict the movement or the rights of preds even more.

He went back in his mind to think of any other individual who’d done what she had and came up with nothing. Not even the mayor, Pricilla—and before her Bellwether—had made a single television appearance to promote their agendas. Oh, they had made appearances on chat shows and morning news stories and the like, but they were always personable interviews. It was mostly friendly, nattering fluff.

It had always been Hopps who bore bad news to the point that it had been a running joke among those in the pred community that Hopps was the real mayor and that Pricilla was playing second fiddle.

Hopps was so strong and seemed so powerful in those interviews, it seemed as though she were the true force to be reckoned with in the city. While it had been clear that the mayor and her minions posed a threat, Hopps was the major dominating force—or seemed to be—in the minds of most mammals.

Finding out that not only was Hopps on  _his_  side of the fight against Zootopia, but that she had been aiding an organisation that he himself had been associated with—the guards were linked to Honey who was linked to Hopps—was incomprehensible and even ridiculous. Add to that the fact that the bunny was a would-be murder victim of the mayor’s, including the news that she had experienced a psychic crack up at the instigation of an other-worldly creature, and her tale was totally past the point of credulity. There was no way that  _she_  was a victim of anything.

He couldn’t help the pang of guilt he felt at the thought that she’d deserved all the bad things that had happened to her. It was a pervasive idea that he couldn’t help from showing up from time to time.

He had told Honey that he didn’t know if he would have left the bunny there on the island alone and nearly defenceless, but right then, at that moment, sitting in the chair of the hospital, he knew that he would have: He listened to the pandemonium around him. Doctors and nurses were dashing around him from emergency to emergency in a sure sign that the hospital had been overbooked and that there weren’t enough doctors and nurses to go around. Even with all the nurses in Bunnyburrow, there was no way that the city, let alone the county hospital, had enough resources to host the displaced denizens of another whole city.

 _Former_  city, he chided himself.

And that was why he would have left her. All of this had been her doing. He felt the tingling of doubt in the back of his mind, but he persisted, nevertheless: It was her fault. She was the one to blame, and she deserved ill treatment in kind.

Right?

Well, it didn’t matter if she was to blame or not.

Yes—he thought—he could make an argument for her innocence the way that Honey had, and the things that Hopps had done for COR such as rescuing his fellow preds was wonderful and good, but could that outweigh the evil that he saw in her?

He shook his head slightly as his mind wandered. She was too far gone. The feelings of anger and fear he’d been led to feel were too strong.

She was the image of everything wrong with Zootopia. And yet somehow she was here to help? It was like finding out the Devil were secretly leading souls to Heaven.

He shook his head and opened his eyes to stare at the ceiling.

Forcing himself to stand in spite of his tired muscles, he rubbed his eyes groggily as once again he looked around. He took to milling about aimlessly. As he walked, he took note of the mammals coming and going through the wide hospital doors. Many of those he saw leaving through the doors were preds, likely from Happy Town. He could tell from their accents as they spoke and from the way they carried themselves. It was totally different from the way the preds from this county held themselves.

There was pride and bounce in the step of the preds here. More than there was in the natives of Happy Town, anyway. He could tell that much.

He frowned as he watched them go, likely having been discharged. Some were bandaged and being wheeled out by nurses or whoever was with him. It was nearly a constant stream, and as many as he saw leaving through the doors he also saw coming in, seeking triage care for the first time. It would have surprised him if those just arriving had walked all the way straight from Happy Town and right through the doors of the hospital. It was a sickening thought, and he shuddered slightly to himself as his mind wandered yet again.

“Excuse me!” said came a voice. “Excuse me!” came the feminine voice said again a bit louder, the nurse’s voice trying to cut over the dull murmur echoing through the large ward. “Is there anybody here who’s looking for someone?”

“Yeah!” said Wilde who flinched as a roar of affirmative voices rang out behind him. He looked behind him and saw nearly the whole waiting room was standing now, quieting down as they looked on expectantly.

The waiting room was gigantic, nearly the size of a shopping mall plaza and was filled with milling bodies who were now all standing and gaping attentively. It looked almost like a rally.

“Refugees from Happy Town?” she asked over the crowd as she stood up on a chair to catch the eyes of the whole room.

Again, several nodded in the affirmative while few others sat down.

“I’ve got three rosters here,” she said. “If you would all please line up in front of the reception desk, I’ll be glad to assist you!”

Wilde grunted slightly as several mammals pushed forward. He felt a pang of fear as he watched nearly the whole room start to form a line at the tiny window of the reception desk as the bunny nurse disappeared around the corner before reappearing behind the window.

In spite of his hating getting stuck behind a huge line, Wilde found himself yawning. He jostled for his spot in the queue as several others crowded back around him.

“I need you all to line up against the wall along the room. Don’t stand in front of the doors, it’s a safety issue. We still need to have a clear space in the ward and I need everyone to back away and stand against the line,” she reiterated.

Wilde felt himself pushed along as the line broke up and started to reform along the walls of the waiting room. He quickly tried to find a closer spot again, and let out a sigh as he leaned against a chair, not daring to sit for fear of losing his spot.

He listened carefully, suspense spiking through him every time he heard someone ahead of him in line start to cry, or someone start to yell. He found himself hoping and praying that he wouldn’t be one of those met with bitter disappointment and sorrow.

The wait seemed interminable, and he dragged his feet as exhaustion coupled with the waiting started to take its toll on him. A little over fifteen minutes later, Wilde found himself at the front of the line.

As he stepped forward, he ran his claws through his fur to get rid of the dishevelled look, trying to appear marginally presentable.

As he got to the window, he was met by the receptionist’s beaming face, her shimmering eyes looking up at him warmly.

“Name?” she asked as she regarded him.

“Uh . . .” he started, his groggy mind slowing him down, “Wilde,” he said.

She shuffled through the list and went through it.

“What’s the first name?” she asked as she went down a list of Wildes.

“Mike,” he said. “Or Michael,” he amended.

“Hmm,” she said as she looked down the roster. “Okay, I have a Michael Wilde here, but I . . . what species are you looking for?” she asked.

“Red fox,” he said. “I’m his father.”

“Ah,” she said as she looked back up at him, “then he’s not at this hospital.”

Wilde stared at her blankly for a beat before anger and annoyance surged through him, instantly waking him.

“What do you mean he’s not here?” he asked with a hint of irritation in his voice.

“Well, the Michael Wilde here is a tiger, not a fox,” she replied.

“That’s impossible!” said the fox as he glowered at the nurse, “Wilde is a last name for foxes!”

“Then evidently, a family of foxes adopted a tiger,” returned she.

“Call them!” he said.

She stared at him blankly. “Call who?” she asked.

“The doctor who assessed him! Or call the room and make sure he’s a tiger.”

He felt himself start to shrink as he realised he was making a scene.

She, however, nodded patiently and picked up the phone, dialling the floor number.

“Hi, Marge? I have a favour to ask you. I have someone here by the name of . . . ?”

Wilde looked at her vacantly for a moment before realisation had him jumping in. “Oh! Uh, Nick Wilde!” he practically shouted.

“Nick Wilde here on the first floor,” she said. After a beat, “Yeah, Nick Wilde, first floor. He’s here with me in the waiting room looking for his son.”

Wilde tuned out as she made pleasant conversation with whoever it was on the other end of the line, probably a nurse. She asked Marge for a favour, saying that she needed her to drop in on a patient on her floor and to confirm the species.

There was a moment of silence as the nurse in front of him waited before perking up again, exchanging more pleasant words before finally hanging up.

Sighing, she looked up at Wilde. “He’s definitely a tiger, sir.”

Wilde felt himself deflate. “But . . . I saw my son’s name on the roster on the website.”

She quirked an eyebrow. “And it said he was a red fox?”

Wilde nodded as he pulled it up on his phone and showed it to her.

She looked at it and hummed. “This . . . uh . . .” she said as she looked it over, “this website isn’t sponsored by the hospital,” she said at last.

“I don’t think the website is lying,” he growled, willing himself to believe that his son was alive and okay, fighting hard to drive back the welling of emotion and disappointment that threatened to carry him off on a black tide.

She had the audacity to shrug and eye him pitifully. “Well . . .” she trailed off in thought, “I mean . . . it’s  _possible_  that he’s here somewhere, but just not as a patient.”

It took him a moment for her words to sink in on him.

“You mean . . . he could still be here?”

“But just not as a patient,” she finished again. “If that’s what the situation is,” she started, “you’re going to want to check the visitor’s log over there,” she pointed.

Immediately, he turned and got out of line, walking over to the reception desk. Behind him, he heard the nurse start in with another mammal.

He came up to the visitors’ window and found it empty. The nurse working on the Happy Town register opposite him turned to regard him over her shoulder.

“He’ll be right back: the nurse that handles reception needed to get something. Don’t worry,” she said before turning back to the mammal in front of her.

This fucking thing was taking an eternity, he thought as he growled to himself as he drummed his fingers on the desk.

Moments later, the nurse came up from somewhere behind one of the offices he could see inside the reception room.

“Sorry about that!” said the nurse as he came up. “I just had to take care of something for a patient. As you can see, we’re a bit overstretched.”

Wilde nodded. “Yeah, look, it’s fine. I’m just looking for my son. He’s one of the refugees from Happy Town.”

“Oh, for that, you’re gonna need to stand in that line,” the nurse pointed to the line he’d just been in.

“Oh, no,” said Wilde in annoyance, “he’s a refugee but he wasn’t injured.”

“Ah, well, for that, there’s another register at City Hall. This is only for injured refugees.”

Wilde growled. The fucking bureaucracy and total ineptitude of the nurse was infuriating him.

“No, I mean he may be here as a vistor! He was registered here!”

“If he was registered here it means that he has to be a patient.”

“Or a visitor!” shouted Wilde angrily.

“What register are you talking about? If you have something besides what we have, it wasn’t put out by us. I mean, there are a lot of mammals around here and some of them started taking names in different places and putting them up on websites, and if that’s what happened to your son and someone put his name up on a website saying that he was here, that’s independent of us and we have no knowledge of that.”

“You haven’t even looked up his name!”

“Sir, if you don’t calm down I’m going to have to have you escorted from the premises.”

Wilde took a calming breath. “I just need to find my son. Can you check to see if he was given a visitor’s pass or something?”

At that moment the door to the office burst open.

“Damn,  _there_  you are!” said the weasel as he came up behind the rabbit.

“What is it?” said the nurse as he turned to the doctor.

“We have a patient coding. All hands on deck!”

“Right, so it’s just me and you?” said the nurse as he jumped up quickly. “Which room?”

“A-19!” said the doctor. “We’re probably gonna have to make a run for it. I have nurse Charlotte there now.”

“Wait!” shouted Wilde.

“Sorry! Sorry!” shouted the nurse as he dashed to the door, “I gotta go! Maybe someone else can help you!”

“Get back here you son of a bitch!” shouted Wilde as the nurse and doctor team disappeared through the door.

“Hey, excuse me sir?” came a booming voice, “Is everything alright over here?”

Wilde turned and craned his neck upward to regard the looming bison looking down at him, his uniform pristine as his belt buckle shone with the bronze word “SECURITY” written across it in bold.

“Yeah!” Wilde sighed as he stepped away from the help counter, “everything’s great,” he said sarcastically as he turned and started to walk away.

“Do you have any family here?” asked the security guard as Wilde made his way back to one of the chairs.

He shook his head at the guard’s question. “I don’t know. Maybe.”

“Then, Sir, I’m afraid I’m gonna have to ask you to leave.”

Wilde let out a mirthless laugh. “Yeah, that sounds about right,” he said.

“Hey!” came another voice.

“What?!” Wilde shouted as he turned toward the voice.

He froze at what he saw.

Standing there was Mike, in the midst of the many milling faces.

The young fox was jumping up to try and get his attention over the heads of the crowd, his arm waving high over the others.

“Dad, over here!” he shouted.

Wilde felt his mind clear, everything else in that moment falling away into nothingness as everything in him at that moment was focused on getting to his son.

In a burst of energy, Wilde jumped into full sprint, weaving his way through bodies and objects.

In a clearing of people, he saw his son, standing in full view and running toward him.

He drove himself faster, and in a burst of tears, and laughter; relief, and joy, threw his arms around the young male as they crashed into each other.

Wilde held on tightly, feeling as the well of emotion had him descending into sobs as he held his flesh and blood in his arms.

His son was a tod, now—fifteen—and Wilde could feel his macho side screaming at him to have some dignity—there was nothing manly about crying!

On the other paw, he told that side of him to shut the fuck up. His son had come back from the dead. There was only one emotion he  _could_  feel and that was elation to the point of tears.

Slowly, they let go of each other and just stared at each other for a moment as they took each other in and wiped away their tears.

Wilde noted that his son was wearing a sleeveless shirt with a bandage around his left arm.

Mike took note of his father’s stare and shrugged, the action causing him to wince in pain.

“I got shot,” was all he said. “Morris, too. He has a thick hide and a lot of fur, though, so it didn’t get him as bad.”

“What happened?” asked Wilde. “Where were you?”

“Morris and me were just on the beach. We were just walking, and then we saw the explosion.”

“How did you escape?”

“We were on the beach when we saw a bunch of those things coming for us. We were just right next to Morris’ dad’s boat, so we jumped on. I mean, we were probably, like, the first ones on. Then a bunch of others came and Borris and I went down into the cargo hold just to have our own space. Then the boat started moving. It was scary! I didn’t know where you were, I didn’t know what was going on. I just heard a bunch of mammals screaming and then they rushed us and crammed us down stairs.”

Wilde frowned. “How d’you get shot?”

“That was later, when the boat was out in the deepwater. We came out and saw that nobody was around. A lot of people, I guess, went into the rooms. So we came up on deck, and Morris’ dad was trying to steer away from these other boats—I think they were the coast guard—and they started shooting at us. We were on the aft deck, so we were more towards them. Morris was in front of me, so he got the worst of it when they started trying to kill us. I got hit twice in one arm. Garou was upstairs with us, though, and he, I dunno, stopped the bleeding. Morris was good, thank God. And then they took us to the hospital when we got on land.”

“Why didn’t you text me?” asked Wilde. “I was frantic!”

Mike sighed. “It wasn’t a real hospital, just some dinky place out in the woods that these mammals had set up for us. I didn’t like it there.”

“Too dirty?”

Mike shook his head. “Too many rabbits. Too many prey.”

Wilde nodded, completely sympathising with him.

“So anyway . . . we just didn’t have any cell service. But then Jack Savage came and he led us here.”

“Jack knew you were here?”

“Yeah.”

Wilde clenched his teeth in anger. “That bunny’s got a lot of explaining to do when we get back,” he said.

Mike cocked his head. “You’re with him?”

Wilde nodded. “He’s back at the place I’m staying.”

“We’ll, he didn’t know who I was,” said the lad. “I mean, he seemed cool and all. Probably the coolest of them all. I . . . I dunno, he kind of surprised me.”

“Surprised you how?”

“I dunno, I just picture prey being . . . different.”

“Did you think he was gonna be mean?” smirked Wilde.

“No, I mean, like . . . he liked us. He liked me.”

Wilde gave his son a bemused stare as he waited for him to go on.

Mike wiped his face. “I don’t know, it’s just . . . like . . . back in the city . . . I dunno, I just could always feel as though the prey didn’t like me. Or any of us. Like we were a waste of space. But he . . . I dunno. He was happy. And he was nice. And . . . I dunno, it just felt like he really liked us.”

Wilde nodded and put his arm around his son as he led him to the door.

“So yeah, somebody else was in charge of taking names,” said Mike. “I don’t think Jack knew who I was. Or who any of us were. He just made the plans for us to come here.”

“The nurse at the front desk told me you weren’t here,” he said as they reached the exit.

“I was discharged early this morning. I think that’s why.”

“Ah, so you were on the visitor’s list?”

Mike shook his head. “I don’t think I would have been. I didn’t register as a visitor. I was better, but a bunch of Morris’ friends weren’t and his dad took a bad hit, too. So, we were just kind of sticking around with them. I just heard the nurse call up to our floor and I heard you were down here. I just overheard her while I was at the coffee station. I told Morris that if I didn’t come back that I’d found you and was probably leaving with you. I was gonna text him anyway when I got my phone recharged. It’s been dead since, like, the second day.”

The two of them stopped as they stepped outside. The older fox pulled his son in for another tight hug.

“You have no idea how glad I am you’re alive.” It was the understatement of the century. “You’re the only thing I have that I can look at and say is good,” he said as he held him.

The tod struggled slightly. “Dad, c’mon!” he replied, chuffing a bit with emotion, “Let me go!” he said, laughing slightly in a bid to play off the depth of emotion he felt.

“No,” said Wilde simply.

“Don’t we have to get someplace? It’s freezing out here!”

After a moment, Wilde let go as he breathed a sigh. “I suppose.”

“How’d you get here, anyway? Subway? Metro?” he asked.

“I asked one of the guys we’re staying with if I could borrow his truck. His name’s Jasper. Nice bunny,” he said as they walked into the gaping parking lot. “He’s a bit bristly, but kind hearted deep down. I think you’ll like him.”

-.-.-.-

Mike turned to look at his father in disbelief at the words that he’d just said.

They were driving down a long road away from the city centre, away from the hospital.

The hospital had been way on the other side of town, and it was taking them quite a bit of time to get home. In that time, Wilde had started to recount his  _own_  adventures since escaping five nights ago.

Wilde took a deep breath as they drove past row on row of tilled fields growing fall vegetables while field hands could be seen planting winter crops in fallow plots. He glanced at Mike out of the corner of his eye, feeling himself under tight scrutiny as the young fox regarded him, not quite sure he’d heard his father right. He  _knew_  his son’s reaction to the news of the century was going to take some time to quell.

“Dad . . .” started Mike at last, “did you just say . . . .”

“That Judy Hopps saved me. Along with Fangmeyer, Wolford, Cawhauser, and Finnick.” He spat the words out quickly, just trying to push them out with as little eye-rolling as possible.

‘ _Just state the facts as they happened,’_  he reminded himself.  _’Don’t editorialise.’_

It was a tall order for the older fox. He had to bite back his own commentary on the situation—namely his opinion that the disaster at Wilde Times was all down to Judy Hopps. Oh, sure, it had technically been City Hall and Swinton who had been behind the attack, but it was Judy who’d made the attitude toward preds what it was. Of that, he had no doubt. The city had used a climate of fear to ignite the expulsion of preds from the city and neighbouring Happy Town; a climate fomented by Judy Hopps.

Without even saying it, the incredulous look on his son’s face told all: The tod felt the same as he did.

“So . . . how did she ‘save’ you all?” asked Mike, more than a hint of sarcasm and disbelief in his tone.

“She knew that something was going wrong. She knew that there was a problem the instant she was able to put . . . certain pieces together.”

“Doesn’t it make more sense that she  _knew_  there was gonna be an attack and didn’t wanna be in the middle of it?”

Wilde nodded carefully and clenched his teeth at his answer. He rolled his eyes before voicing the damning thought. “I . . . I would have agreed with you except that . . .” he trailed, sighing.

“Except that what?” asked the tod.

“Except that . . . Honey . . . vouched for her . . . .” It was such a strange thing to say! How was he supposed to explain that their closest ally was working with their arch enemy?

Mike’s response was exactly was exactly what he expected:

“What?! So . . . Honey’s a traitor? She was working for Judy the whole time?!”

The poor fox looked as though his world had shattered,

Wilde said nothing and nodded to himself. It was  _exactly_  the problem that everybody in the guard was having with the situation—exactly the source of all of Honey’s current issues: It was absolutely, totally,  _impossible_ —the remotest of remote possibilities—in the minds of many preds, that Hopps was in anyway good; which meant that if Honey and Hopps were working together, it could  _only_  be because  _Honey_  had switched sides—not Judy.

Wilde pondered what to say next as he mulled over his thoughts. His son harboured a lot of resentment. He was a good young fox, but the prejudice of the city had harmed him in ways he kept buried. He always strove to do well in school, shone like a bright star amongst his peers—even prey animals—and excelled at being a conscientious and well mannered individual; however, there was an underlying anger. And who could blame him after years of repressed emotion?

The anger was coming out now, Wilde could see: Mike didn’t want to hear this story! He wanted to hear that Hopps had been locked away by Honey, or that the guard had taken her into custody or that she had been hurt in some way and was going to face justice for her crimes—not that she was  _working_  for Honey! Not that she was going to be working with  _them_  and that they all needed to get along. Mike wouldn’t even  _want_  to get along—not with  _her._  And the idea that there was going to have to be any kind of reconciliation between them was laughable: Mike’d seen what her actions had done! He’d seen the effects of such prejudice on his father and friends. All of his authority figures had been forced to submit in humbling and humiliating ways before a system that treated them as less equal—and for the past two years, just about, Judy fucking Hopps had been leading the charge everywhere he went!

He glared at his father, his gaze demanding an explanation.

The older fox knew he was in a tough spot. Remembering his reaction to both Hopps and Honey when they’d told their stories, he guessed his son’s would be the same. He considered telling his son about the Human, and telling him about the cull that Hopps had witnessed and her subsequent suicide attempt but forbore mentioning it, knowing his son would see what had happened to Hopps as justice rather than as a cruelty.

Mike wouldn’t side with the Human, Wilde knew, but the proverb, “The enemy of my enemy is my friend,” would likely play some part in the way his son viewed her situation.

Instead, he thought maybe going the rout of talking about all the things she had done for them—he bit the inside of his cheek even as he thought those words—would do the trick.

At last, he settled on personal honesty.

Letting out a sigh, he spoke. “No, Honey’s not working for Hopps; Hopps is working for Honey. Apparently, since the time she was in the public eye, ever since the Otterton trial, she’s been working to gather intelligence for her  _and_  for the Zootopian guard. You remember the fox that was brought to us the day of the bomb?”

Mike nodded.

“That was because of Judy. I mean . . . they knew where he was, where to pick him up, because of Judy. She made a call to Honey and Honey made a call to Wolford and Fangmeyer.” He intentionally withheld the fact that the fox in question was apparently his double from another universe.  _’One step at a time,’_  he thought.

Mike looked at his father as angry confusion shone in his face. “Dad, there’s no way that . . . I mean . . .” he stammered, “I  _saw_  the way he looked!  _Isn’t_  she the one who beat him up in the first place?”

Wilde shook his head. “Not according to the fox. She actually managed to prevent his declawing.”

Mike looked at him stunned. “Okay . . .” said the tod as he shook his head in confusion, “but that still doesn’t make her good!”

“I didn’t say she was good,” said Wilde patiently, “all I said was that she’s working for Honey.”

“So . . .” started Mike as he observed his father out of the corner of his eye, “ _you_  don’t think she’s good?” he asked, just making sure he understood.

He shook his head. “No, I don’t.”

“Good,” said Mike, “‘cause I don’t either.” He paused for a moment in thought. “Does  _Honey_  think she’s good?”

Wilde let out a terse sigh. “Yeah . . . she does . . . .”

Mike turned to give his father a look of furious incredulity. “ _How?!_  After all the things she’s done to us,  _how_  can Honey think she’s good?!”

“That’s a good question,” said Wilde.

“I mean, how many people has she killed?!”

“According to Honey,” said Wilde, not quite sure he believed the badger, “none. Except for Otterton and that was due to a ‘mistake.’ She  _says_ , anyway.”

“Who says?” asked Mike.

Wilde huffed out an angry breath. “Hopps.”

His son regarded him in stunned silence. “You fucking met her?!”

“Hey!” said Wilde sternly, “Don’t swear in front of me.”

“Dad this is huge! Can’t you ju-”

“No. I never swore in front of my father and you’re not going to swear in front of me.”

Mike rolled his eyes but continued. “All I mean . . .” he started as he pulled himself together, “is that this is  _huge_! You  _met_  her?”

Wilde nodded.

After a brief pause. “Do you believe her, Dad? That she never killed anyone except Otterton?”

Wilde mulled it over. “I . . . I don’t know. I do and I don’t. On the one paw, Honey was sincere when she told us that Hopps had never killed anyone; on the other paw . . . it’s Judy Hopps. I just . . . how could she  _not_  have killed mammals, you know?”

His son nodded, seemingly in agreement.

“But you know,” started Wilde, quite out of the blue, “you know . . . she  _did_  save Fangmeyer’s cub.”

Mike looked at his father out of the corner of his eye.

“It’s true,” he reiterated. “Fangmeyer showed me a picture of his cub with a family. Apparently, the couple who took the boy in said that Hopps had arranged with them to take any child that was caught up in the . . . well, the newer taming procedures. Hopps . . . was the officer in charge that day and apparently got him out. She was fishing children out of the system. His cub was one of them. They’re going to be meeting in a few days. And . . . apparently, she also managed to save animals under her watch from euthanasia. It was a regular thing.”

Wilde couldn’t help shaking his head slightly as he spoke. It simply didn’t feel right giving the little bunny credit for saving anyone. Especially when, he felt, she had been responsible for their predicament in the first place—or at least the societal conditions which led to it.

“This is wild,” said Mike as he looked out the passenger window at the rows and rows of farmland. He shook his head slightly.

“Not as wild as it is actually  _being_  there,” said the older fox.

“Being where?” said Mike, a slight spike of anxiety washing through him.

“Where we’re staying,” said Wilde, trying to drag it out.

“Dad, c’mon, just tell me  _where._ ”

Wilde hesitated for a moment longer before finally telling him. “At Judy’s parents’ house.”

Mike felt himself petrify. His father may as well have told him that they were going to drive off a cliff into the sea.

Mike didn’t have to say anything. His discomfort was palpable.

Wilde glanced to the side and saw his son staring intently at the odometer, counting down the miles as they got closer and closer to a situation he really didn’t want to be a part of.

“Her parents are really nice. And so are her brothers and sisters. Most of them. Some of them.”

Mike was silent.

“And there are a bunch of other preds there too you could probably hang out with.”

Mike continued in silence.

“Jack Savage is there, too.”

Mike looked up at that. “He is?”

Wilde nodded. “He really is. He’s in the hospital wing at the moment.”

“Is he okay?”

“Yeah, some asshole just broke his back, but he’s all better now. Honey sent me a text.”

He caught the stunned look Mike was giving him.

“It’s a long story. He was attacked after we rescued the mice from Zootopia. After we raided it. Well,  _I_  couldn’t go since I was helping with the mice.”

Mike just stared at him. “You were  _there?_ ”

Wilde nodded. “It’s been a hell of a week, Mike. It feels like it’s been a year to get to this point.”

“What happened.”

Wilde smiled, glad that he had manage to distract his son for a while.

“Well . . .”

-.-.-.-

“So, we’re in agreement,” said Nick, “This’s been the longest five days, ever.”

Judy nodded and smiled slightly, leaning back slightly. She sat across from him in the upstairs kitchen off the main entry.

She let out a sigh. “Yeah, it really has been. Nothing here is familiar anymore. Except on the surface. Everyone’s talking the same, and acting the same. Everyone  _looks_  the same, but . . . it’s different. My parents and brothers and sisters—they’re all the same. Things just seem . . . so strange at the same time, and I have no idea why we’re even here.”

Nick took a sip of his coffee and took a deep breath. “Just to help out, I guess.”

“Yeah, well I need something to do. I need a purpose. Back home, I knew what my purpose was. I’m supposed to be a police officer, fighting crime. Now I feel like I’m just back to square one, hiding at home with my parents.”

“We  _are_  hiding at home with your parents,” Nick reiterated. “If you haven’t noticed, their’s a price on both our heads. Especially yours since you look the same as your evil twin.”

Judy grunted. “She’s not evil. She’s just like me.”

“No, she isn’t.”

“She is,” Judy insisted softly. “Deep down, we both make our choices for the same reason: We want to do good things. We want to do the right thing. I believe that. I  _know_  that. I know she’s sincere.”

Nick shrugged. “You’re probably right. I haven’t paid much attention to her. I was just teasing about her, anyway.”

Judy was glad for the quiet of the small kitchen. It gave them a chance to be private with each other without having to be cooped up in their room.

“But yeah, I remember that,” she said as her mind drifted back to the death threat against Hopps. “There’s nothing really we can do about that, but I just, I dunno . . . according to her, she’s innocent of wrong doing. Well, most of it, anyway. Why can’t people just leave each other alone?”

“I hear ya’,” he said.

They both turned as they heard the front door open.

Judy got up and walked toward the door as Nick followed.

She heard the front door close as she rounded the corner and saw Mike and Wilde just locking up.

“Hey, uh . . . Nick!” she said.

The tod froze when he saw her, visibly paling as his ears flattened.

Wilde stopped and eyed her very carefully as he put an arm around his son. “Are you Carrots or Sergeant?” he asked with a slight growl. He’d been hoping for a bit of a buffer zone—the chance to give his son the opportunity to acclimate to the new situation.

“Uh . . .” she took a step back, “Carrots,” she answered. She could see Nick out of the corner of her eye, staring at her from just inside the kitchen.

Wilde seemed to barely relax.

“You don’t need to worry about her,” he said calmingly as he turned to Mike. “She’s just Hopps’ body double.”

“Dad!” whispered Mike, “that’s not just a body double, that  _is_  her!”

Wilde took another look, just to make sure. He took in her careful stance and the clothes she was wearing.

No, just from looking at her, he could tell it was Carrots.

He looked at his son. “It’s not her. Trust me it’s not her.” He turned to Judy. “Where  _is_  Sergeant, by the way?”

Judy shook her head doubtfully. “I. . . I don’t know, really. Downstairs somewhere, I think. Did you want me to go check? Make sure . . .” she eyed Mike carefully who seemed to be glaring right back at her, “make sure the coast is clear?” she finished.

“I appreciate it, thanks,” nodded Wilde.

She nodded and turned to leave, stopping when she got to the stairs leading down.

“Oh! By the way,” she said as she turned back to them, “your ‘body double’ is in the kitchen.”

Wilde looked to kitchen entrance before looking back at her, nodding thankfully again.

As she went down, she heard Wilde ask whether his son wanted to meet his body double, smiling to herself as she heard the tod’s shout of surprise moments later.

-.-.-.-

Hopps sat in the downstairs common room off the landing of the stairs. She groaned in exasperation to herself as she poured over more files in preparation for the inquest. She looked up when the stairs made a noise to see her double coming down the stairs. Immediately, the bunny caught her eyes and started toward her as soon as she reached the landing.

“Hey . . .” started Judy, somewhat unsure, “uh . . . I do you think there’s anyplace you could move to that wasn’t here?”

Judy’s tone was delicate, but the request was decidedly  _not_  so.

“Last time I checked,” said Hopps, “you were the guest in my parents’ house. Not the other way around.”

“Uh . . . sorry, I know,” said Judy, “this has got to be a bit of an inconvenience but Nick’s son his here.”

When Judy said nothing for a moment, Hopps prompted her to continue. “And?”

“And . . . well . . . he’s sort of uncomfortable. Around you. Well . . .  _us_ , really.”

Understanding dawned in Hopps’ face. “So . . . you guys want me to disappear while he takes a tour of the house?” Hopps realised the situation was delicate and that of course, the young fox would need a chance to get used to his surroundings without fear of running into her.

She felt a pang of guilt pulse through her as she realised how she must seem to someone so young.

“Maybe even longer. I dunno, I’m thinking of making myself scarce, too,” said Judy. “He just looked . . . like he’d seen a ghost or a demon when he saw me. It was just . . . disheartening.”

Hopps heaved a sigh as she closed up her laptop. Her twin’s disappointment was palpable but nowhere near measured against her own. It was her fault they were experiencing this in the first place.

“I’m going to be in the library. It can’t be helped, I have to get some work done,” Hopps added quickly when it seemed she was about to protest the move.

Judy nodded slightly as she looked to the side in consideration.

“I guess we can’t protect him forever.”

Hopps nodded. “Well, yeah, and, I mean, life goes on. My life and my problems aren’t going to wait. I mean, I’ll be as out of the way as I can,” she said placatingly.

Judy nodded.

“Just go up and let Nick know,” continued Hopps, referring to Wilde.

Judy nodded as she turned and disappeared up the steps.

Hopps watched her go and felt yet another twinge of guilt at the fact that she had had that effect on such a young mammal. She had gotten into her profession to empower young ones, not frighten them. And yet that’s exactly what she had on her paws now. She had created a climate and air of fear and anger around herself such that children thought of her as a monster.

Monster!

The thought rang in her head, and she felt herself hyperventilate slightly as she stood up, closing her laptop as she did so.

She turned and started down one of the tributes leading off the common room.

She wandered, feeling somewhat aimless as she heard voices behind her, around the bend in the tunnel, marvelling at the structure. She heard a younger voice male voice, just this side of having gone through the change, barely having transformed from being a child’s to being an adult’s, resonate with awe at the work her father had put in to building this home for his family, along with the help of her mother and older siblings, once they got old enough, of course.

This house had been an effort in community living, and she hoped that the warmth and welcoming feel to their home would help put the young fox at ease.

She reached the door of the library and opened it, sighing as she closed the door behind her.

She felt with her paw for the light switch along the side of the wall and flipped it on.

The library was piled high with shelf after shelf of books. So many of her siblings had been avid readers with such wide ranging interests. The vast bulk of the texts were written on various topics pertaining to farming, from how to compost, to reading the stars in order to calculate the right dates for planting—to that, there were books teaching elementary and intermediate calculus. There were texts on botany and biology.

There was hardly a subject that the books in their library didn’t cover.

Many of the books had belonged to her grandfather and great-grandfathers—there had been plenty to go ‘round for all of their siblings.

She wandered into the children’s section. Most of the kits, including Fay, were at school. Otherwise, Hopps was certain she would have found the area filled with her siblings, quietly reading at desks or tables about the place. If they weren’t out helping Jasper and the others out in the field, learning to be farmers themselves, that is.

She flopped down on a couch, carrying her laptop under her arm, and let out an anxious sigh.

Her internal struggle in the last few days had come to the surface more when she wasn’t keeping herself occupied. When she wasn’t keeping busy, and her thoughts became idle, things in her mind would take turns like they had only last night with Honey.

In the house now was a young fox who had suffered at her paws, albeit indirectly. She was face to face with a creature that had had to listen to her statements about preds during his introductory years as a young adult.

It had to have made an impact on him, and not for the better, she knew.

It was getting worse, she realised. Little by little, she was become unable to stave off the guilt she felt for what she had done. Sure, it had been done in the name of saving the city, of saving preds, but while she had been looking at the broad, overall picture, she had neglected to account for the impact she was having on individuals.

Her end game of making the city a better place in the long run was lost on an individual level. While she might have accused Wilde of being unable to see the forest for the trees, she’d been unable to see the trees for the forest.

She’d had to compromise herself—she’d been forced to make a choice between meeting preds on their own, individual levels or focus on an abstract goal whose results might take decades to accomplish.

She let out a sigh as she mulled things over. Without affecting people on an individual basis, they would be unable to see the benefits of what she was doing. Wolford had more or less come around to her precisely  _because_  her actions had affected him personally, but the master plan for which she and Honey had decided to take the steps they had had necessitated her ignoring the immediate needs of large swaths of the prey population.

What they had needed was not to be arrested, to not be killed, to not be persecuted, to not hear prejudicial messages against them, to not be spoken down to as though they were the scourge of society.

Her work had totally neglected those needs while focusing on doing works whose benefits wouldn’t be seen for years.

Mike . . .

His death would have been on her conscience for years to come. As would all the deaths that had occurred through the ZPD.

Each time, a little piece of her had died with them. She imagined that if she had been a truly just individual, she would have been in the building to save them all. As it was, when it was her watch, she had never lost a soul. Still, as her job in the ZPD had been more administrative, it had been her job to watch the God awful footage of euthanizations and write up dispassionate reports about the events that had taken place and send them to City Hall. Bogo, who had expected her loyalty, was undermined again and again.

Each time she saw the life fade from one of her fellow mammals, she had felt the sting of pain that accompanied the fact that she felt as though she were complicit in the process. To an extent, she felt she had been.

She shook her head. She was giving her mind too much time to wander as she felt the sinister thought creep up in her mind that perhaps . . . there might be something she could do to make it up to them . . . to make it up to herself . . . .

“You have too much time on your paws, Little Hopps,” came a deep voice that startled her.

She turned to see Silver watching her from among the stacks of books.

“What’re you doing here?” she asked without thinking.

“Just looking to be alone,” he said. “Same as you.”

“I’m not looking to be alone, I just need to give . . . someone space,” she said at last.

He nodded slightly. “Yes, I saw the tod as he came up to the house. He’s a lot like his father—lots of brains, but a lot of anger, too.”

Hopps nodded. “It’s my fault,” she said.

“If you want to throw a pity party, you’ll have to look elsewhere. I know, Honey knows, and you know that what you did was right. Unless you feel that your death would somehow have saved more lives?”

“I . . .” she trailed as she tried to voice her thoughts. “I-I . . . I just wonder,” she stammered as she searched for the words, “if maybe I was helping to solve a problem that I created. Maybe being in the position that I was in, doing the things that I did and saying the things that I did, maybe I threw gasoline on a fire that wasn’t blazing till I came along.”

“You really think you have that much power?”

Judy shrugged, uncertainly. “Television and talk radio are powerful platforms,” she said. “Things didn’t get really ramped up in the city until  _I_  came along.”

“So you think your bullet—the bullet that killed Otterton—was the magic bullet heard round the world that brought about the situation everyone’s in now?”

“I know it’s stupid-”

“Of course it’s stupid!” said the fox intently. “Do you know what happened with Honey? Did she tell you her story?”

Hopps took in a deep breath and nodded.

“Then you know,” continued Silver, “that you were not the beginning of anything. All you ended up doing was exposing the dark side of the city that the human and his minions had worked to keep buried.”

“But if I hadn’t made it acceptable-”

“You didn’t. In the story you told of how you came to meet Honey, you told her—and everyone—that you had already seen the violence of the ZPD.”

She nodded.

“Then they were already killing mammals,” he stated,

“Well . . .” she started. It was true, what he was saying. While she hadn’t had any direct proof of what was going on until after she’d become part of the “in group,” there had been an inkling in the back of her mind after the scandal regarding what had happened with Weasleton.

“You aren’t a monster. If you can’t get over your guilt, Little Hopps, use it to drive you toward greater things. Carry it with you and let it force you to make better choices in the future. As for me, I don’t judge you, and you mustn’t let others judge you either. If you let your guilt conquer you . . .” he trailed, seeming suddenly very solitary as he stood under the light, “it can take away your reason for living,” he finished.

“I can’t help how I feel sometimes, though,” she said. “There’s so much that I would take back.”

Silver nodded his head. “We all have that, Little Hopps,” he started. “But let me ask you: If you were in any one of the scenarios for which you’re currently sitting in judgement of yourself, would you have done anything differently, knowing that you were facing death?”

She thought back and shook her head no. As she had concluded with Honey the night before, she felt as though there was nothing she could have done differently without ending up putting her life in peril, and what good would that have done anyone?

“You wish you were a super hero so that you could save the lives you lost,” he stated. “In spite saying that you don’t think there’s anything you could have done, you’re always looking back, wishing and hoping that there might be a different way—wishing that you could have done things differently.”

“You have no idea,” said Hopps, laughing slightly in a bid to play off her analytical mood. “Have you ever read  _The Little Match Girl?_ ” she asked.

Silver shook his head no.

Hopps stood up and made her way away from him, into the stacks opposite the couch. “It’s a short story about this little girl who sells matches on the street,” she started. “It’s the dead of winter, and she has to sell as many as she can or her father will beat her. She isn’t able to sell many, so rather than go home, she huddles in the corner of a church outside. To keep warm, she keeps lighting a match. It keeps her warm briefly. Then she lights another and another, and each time she has a vision of a feast, of a Christmas banquet. Finally she has a vision of her grandmother who’s the only person who really loved her. She died a while back. When the match starts to burn out, and the vision starts to fade, she strikes all the matches at once and flies away to Heaven with her grandmother. A crowd is standing around her the next day. She froze to death, of course.”

Silver eyed her, not saying anything, though confused.

“I . . .” she started, her throat catching slightly as she pulled a book of the shelf, “I used to read that story again and again because I kept hoping that the ending would change.” She looked at him. “Do you understand me now?”

Silver regarded her silently for a moment. “You keep hoping that your own story will change,” he said softly. He nodded slightly, his soft gaze finding hers. “You wish that . . . someday, you’ll go over the events of your life and find them changed for the better.”

She walked back toward the couch, back toward him.

“I can always hope that all of this had just been a bad dream,” she said as she reached the couch.

He neared her as she held out the book. He took it and looked at the cover.

It was a children’s book with a beautiful Christmas tree on the cover.

“It’s sad,” she said, “but it’s a good story. It’s only, like, ten pages long.”

He regarded her intently for a moment before nodding. “I should take my leave,” he said gently.

“Out patrolling again,” she asked.

“Something like that,” he said.

She smiled slightly and watched as he popped away an instantly later.

Her smile faded almost instantly.

She flopped down on the couch again, opened her laptop, and started back to work.

-.-.-.-

Honey was smiling as she stepped through the door. The time spent scoping locations had been incredibly productive, scoping several promising locations that would be suitable to her needs. A strong, permanent base of operations within the city would give her Jack’s branches of COR the ability to be as mobile as they could be for any imminent attacks.

She’d already texted and emailed several of the central COR leaders, asking their advice on the facilities. She also put out feelers for office spaces in the vicinity of the areas she was looking. There were several candidates she had in mind.

She’d gotten a few emails back suggesting that a shipment of weapons was already on its way along with a few members of the exiled Zootopian guard with a few choice teams from COR-Central to boot.

Warehouses, an office area, and tenements were needed quickly. It was too much to ask the city to continue to subsidise COR—it was already subsidising the housing of the displaced refugees from Happy Town and five days was quite enough of a burden to place on the citizens of Bunnyburrow.

Fortunately, a recent email back to her had suggested that a transfer of funds was immanent, indicating that they were on their way to approving a location.

There had been a real shift in recent days—a shake up in the structuring of COR.

The organisation had a loose network of different wings in different parts of Zootopia and the surrounding lands that had sprung up in reaction to the oppression—comparatively little though it had been at the time—that was seen in the days after Zootopia reconstituted itself as a city. The different wings had remained separate for some time, gradually taking on a more militaristic bent and dabbling in espionage before it became their main trait.

There had been a central nervous system—the Central—that coordinated between the separate wings while directive power had been seated in the local leaders: Honey was such a one.

During the past year, however, as things had begun heating up, there had been a need to strengthen the nervous system in a bid to get crucial information to different locations in the city and surrounding area quickly. Hopps’ information had played a huge part in that. Pertinent information had needed to be shared quickly since the ZPD liked to spring its raids on citizens with little to no warning. If Hopps became aware that something was happening, the threat was usually immanent.

Along with that had come a renewed spirit of camaraderie among the different branches of the organisation.

With that strengthening of COR-Central had come the ability to have a bit more control over the leaders of the organisation: They had to be predisposed toward working with one another and that meant running things through higher-ups. Honey even allowed herself to take orders from them—when they issued them which was hardly ever—in the spirit of keeping the pipelines open between each wing.

The shakeup, then, lay in the fact that the revelation of Hopps working for COR had created a rumble of the other wings of the organisation. COR-Central may have been aware of what was happening, but other branches may not have been unless the information provided by Hopps affected their areas. Jack had been in on it since Hopps’ work directly affected areas he and his operative were working in, mostly pertaining to mammals Hopps had been instrumental in having smuggled out of the city.

Since COR-Central was merely an extension of the different wings of the organisation working together, it could very well be that the negative view of Hopps could end with the other wings pulling out and forming their own, independent network amongst each other—pulling their funds with them.

She knew the other members of the organisation relatively well, and she knew that when she explained her situation and her actions at the inquest, she would likely get a reprieve. Especially now that Jack was in the clear.

It was that current network that she needed to have working for her, now. She knew she had Jack’s backing, but she needed the other leaders of the organisation with her.

One of her worries, though a minor one, was that other leaders might balk at giving her any funds at all, let alone weapons or mammal power, which was really the least of her concern: Jack had a strong force under his authority and she knew she could count with him. Honey had fewer trained ranks under her—While in the city, she had chosen to rely more heavily on the networks already in place: The Happy Town Guard and the subversive criminal element led by Koslov and Mr. Big, which Wilde had tacitly been a part of, were all she had needed at the time in terms of any brute force. They had all answered to her in one way or another, but the trouble now was that they were more loyal to Koslov and Mr. Big who were, in their minds, their main leaders above their own immediate commanders. To them, Honey had merely been a hub—a coordinator amongst them all to keep things running like a well-oiled machine.

How things would play out as she took a more prominent leadership position was anyone’s guess.

There was a lot of work to do and so little time to do.

She quickly made her way through the entry hall and into the parlour, mulling things over in her mind, where she saw Hopps—No!  _Carrots_ —sitting on the couch with Red.

She greeted them curtly as she strode near them.

“Would you know where Judy is?” she asked.

“Yeah,” said Carrots, “she said she’s in the library.”

Honey nodded.

“Mike and Wilde are back,” the bunny continued.

Honey turned back as she walked into the partition that led to the stairs. “Oh really! How is he?” Her eyes were bright and hopeful.

“He had a bandage on his arm, but I didn’t really get the chance to ask him what that was all about. But he looked fine aside from that.”

“Ah, well,” said Honey as she nodded somewhat sadly, “it was too much to hope that he’d be  _totally_  unscathed. As long as he escaped with his life: That’s the important thing.”

Carrots nodded. “Just so you know, both Serge and I are staying out of the way. Mike was worried when he saw me, and Dr. Wilde had to explain to him that I was her body guard. She’s kind of hiding in the library for the same reason.”

The badger nodded. “That’s probably a smart idea to not need to overload his senses. I’m sure it was enough just coming to the house that belongs to Judy’s parents. Anyway, I got some stuff I need to work out with Judy.”

“Please,  _please,_ ” started Judy, “can I have something to  _do?_ ”

Honey quirked an eyebrow. “Sure. You can probably help with the carrot farming.”

Judy scowled. “You know what I mean. I  _need_  police work! I live for the work you’re doing! Isn’t there anything either of us can  _do?_ ” she said, motioning to Nick, next to her.

Honey shook her head. “Take it up with Silver. You’re under his and my protection. I don’t know if he told you exactly why he needs you to stay out of the way of things, but he does.” She paused for a moment in thought. “Although . . .” she said as an idea formed in he mind, “that doesn’t preclude you from having a desk job.”

Carrots sighed sadly. “Not exactly what I had in mind, but I guess it’s better than nothing.”

“It might take awhile since neither of you have the proper clearance levels, yet. Pretty sure that working with an interdimensional creature, and being from another dimension yourselves, might go a long way with the top brass, so to speak.”

“Can’t you just give us something to do, anyway?” asked Nick.

“Not with something like this,” she shook her head. “Letting in mammals who haven’t been vetted in some way to view top-tier information would be irresponsible on my part. Really, I have enough researchers as it is working here. If I brought you on it’d be little more than busy work.” She paused in thought. “In fact, you guys’ve only been her for five days, so you might not even know how to classify certain pieces of information or where to send them. I’ll tell you what, come down to the library with me. You need to read the history of this place and get into all the gritty details. The Hopps family library here is fucking enormous. It’ll get you up to speed with the basics of your newfound home,” she smiled.

Nick stood up. “We may as well,” he said as he turned back to his mate. “Don’t wanna get lost in the city again. We could at least study a map,” he grinned.

Judy took his paw when he offered it. “It’s better than nothing.”

Honey smiled at them. “When you have the basics down, and get to know the city like the back of your paw, start buffing up on the new laws and the city’s legislative history so you know what all the differences are between here and your world.”

“I already know the laws that were passed,” said Carrots. “I know how this place is different.”

“There’s no harm in being thorough. Something tells me you get off on that,” replied Honey.

Nick grinned. “And how!”

Judy frowned as Honey smirked. The badger turned.

“Trust me when I say that I understand,” Honey said as she headed into the other room.

Judy and Nick followed her as she started down the steps.

“I can’t do nothing for very long, either. It’s that antsy feeling you get when there’s so much to do you have no idea where to begin or how to even start,” the badger continued. She stopped on a step and turned back to Judy before going on. “I find that the best solution is to figure out, first of all, what it is you can control: What is it that I  _can_  do, right now, to make the situation better. You want to become an analyst in my organization (which is basically all Silver is willing to let you do)? Both of you need to know what that entails. First and foremost, what you need to do is get familiar with the world you’re living in now. For all practical purposes, it’s like you were born yesterday. Or a week ago or so, in the case of you two. Buff up on history when we get to the library. Judy’s down there, right Carrots?” she asked. “She’ll be able to lend you a paw on where to find stuff. History and law—those are going to be your two main points. Then the geography of the city, but that should be easy since you have a basic command of the city already. But you’re going to have to nail down the particular. When you feel comfortable enough with the basics, come to me, and I’ll be able to fill you in a little more about COR and what we do here, our history and, since you’re going to be working under me, what  _my_  history is and what the history of this branch, how we’re organised, etcetera.”

She turned and started walking down with the two of them in tow. They reached the downstairs landing in silence and walked through the common area where they heard the chatter of distant voices as they wandered on.

They finally reached the door at the end of the corridor.

“After you,” said Honey as she opened it for them.

Nick followed after Judy as they stepped into the rather large looking library.

Books were everywhere, stacked on the tables but mostly on shelves.

Judy looked around at the stacks of shelves. Idly, she wandered down on of the aisles and started running her hands along some of the tomes. She paused for a moment and carefully regarded one of the books and looked up and down the row before turning back to find Nick standing in the middle of the entrance room, simply admiring the space.

“Just the way you remember it?” asked Honey over her shoulder as she wandered into the next chamber room.

Judy shook her head slightly as she walked along the aisles.

“No, not exactly. A few things’ve been switched around. Like this wasn’t here before,” she said gesturing to one of the aisles to her left. “It was just a reading corner before. And a few of these rows have different stuff in them from what I remember,” she said as she looked down a few rows.

The badger nodded as the trio walked along.

“Judy,” called the badger softly. “Judy!” she called again, her voice nearly instantly swallowed up by the stacks.

“Yeah over here!” came a muffled reply.

Rounding the corner of another bookcase, they found Sergeant Hopps sitting on a couch, scrolling through an intelligence brief that had been recovered from the city.

“Hey,” said Judy when she saw her twin, “anything interesting?”

Hopps shrugged. “It’s paperwork. You know. It’s interesting as far as it goes. I know you said,” she started as she looked at Honey, “that another one of your agents discovered something about the Human or something, but I’m not finding anything so far.”

Honey shrugged. “I’m not that worried about it. I mean, I am, but we’ll come across it eventually. Why’d you decide to come down here, anyway? The rest of the team is looking through the dead drops in one of the other wings, aren’t they?”

“Yeah,” sighed Hopps, “I know, but, you know,” she motioned toward the direction of the entrance, “Nick’s son’s walking around and I wanted to find a really out-of-the-way place. You know how it is.”

Honey nodded slightly. “How was he when you saw him,” she asked as she turned to Carrots.

Judy sighed and leant against one of the shelves next to Nick, folding her arms and looking up in thought. “He seemed . . . okay, I guess. But, like, shocked. And then he saw me and that really scared him. I dunno, I thought for a minute that he was gonna bolt. And Nick was pissed. I mean,  _your_  Nick was pissed,” she finished.

“Was he mad at you?”

“Not really,” replied Judy. “Nick was . . . like, I guess protective is the word I’m looking for,” she trailed. “When he found out that I was who I was—that I was . . . your twin,” she said as she motioned to Hopps, “he seemed to be okay, but still kinda wanted me out of the way for a bit.  _Which I can totally understand!_ ” she added hastily.

“Just wait till Nick has to explain how I’m involved with Judy over here. I’ve known the kiddo since he was a kit.”

“He still is one,” said Nick, “from what I saw.”

Honey smirked. “Then you weren’t looking hard enough. He’s already a tod. Just take some time to talk to him. He’ll knock your socks off with what he knows. You can talk about anything with him: Religion, politics, morality, education—you name it, he has some opinion on it already,” she said. “And he seems open enough to changing his mind. I mean, I went to one of his speech and debate classes, and in the middle of it, he forfeited the debate!”

“Pshh! What kind of fox would do that?!” smirked Nick. “A  _true_  fox would have lied his way out of it.”

Honey snickered. “Well, unlike you,” she said jokingly, “he has intellectual honestly. Trust me,” she started as she motioned with her hands, “I was as surprised as you were. The young stag he was debating brought up a fact—some study or something that proved his point—and Mike just goes, ‘Oh, you’re right. I actually didn’t know that.’ He’s super mature for his age.”

Nick shrugged. “I guess . . . but I remember when I was his age. I was emotionally unstable. I was angry.  _Very_  angry. And having to hide it all the time was a full time job. Cutting loose at Wilde Times was probably the only freedom he knew, and that was bombed—it was taken away from him. Now he’s here in his enemy’s den, and he’s gonna feel like he has to break out. Like he’s a prisoner. Especially since he doesn’t have any friends here.”

Judy nodded. “I think Nick’s right. I think the sooner he goes back to a sense of normalcy, thing’s’ll pick up for him. Get him back into school, get him to make friends with some of the mammals here, make friends with some of my— _your—_ ” she corrected as she looked at Hopps, “brothers and sisters, and he’ll see them both here and at school.”

“School’s almost out,” said Hopps. “I mean, it’s nearly time for Fall break.”

“It’s something,” countered Judy.

“Look, I just say we bring it up to . . .  _Nick,_ ” said Nick, “and in the mean time we give the kit some space. It’s not hard to do. If you guys see him in the halls, there’s no reason you have to speak to each other, just go on.”

Both Hopps and Judy nodded.

Honey let out a sigh. “Eventually, I’m gonna have to talk to him about my relationship with you,” she said to Hopps. “And that’s not going to be an easy conversation.”

“I already know,” came a voice.

They all turned and looked down one of the other aisles and saw the young fox standing there looking at them all.

When Judy turned and looked at him, he gasped. The Judy sitting on the couch and the Judy leaning against one of the shelves looked  _exactly_  alike.

“So, it’s true,” said Mike as he looked at Honey, “you really  _are_  working with her,” he spoke, his voice trembling with a slight hint of anger. He marvelled at the scene before him. How could this have happened?!

Honey sighed. “Mikey-”

“Don’t!” barked the tod. “Don’t do that! I don’t even know who you are anymore! I don’t know what the hell is going on!” he shouted.

“Would you like me to tell you?” she asked.

“The whole truth!” he shouted, his voice fuming.

Judy looked at Honey. “Maybe . . . don’t tell him everything about, you know . . . the monster at Searton?” she said.

Honey looked at Judy before looking down in thought. “Well . . .” she said, “he’s bound to run into Silver at some point. So I mean, it’s not like we need to keep anything a secret. I mean, we told a whole town hall meeting about the Human, so we may as well just tell him about it.”

“If I were in his place I’d wanna know,” said Hopps as she looked at Mike.

Mike waited expectantly. “And don’t give me any of the BS about you two,” he said as he looked at Nick and Judy, “being Hopps and my dad’s body doubles. I can smell you from here, and I  _know_  there’s something weird about you two.”

“They’re mates,” offered Honey, trying to put the tod on the defensive. It worked as he turned his gaze back to them and recognised their comingled scents.

His jaw dropped. “No way!” he shouted, his mind breaking as he looked at the pair of them.

Nick gave an annoyed look at Honey before looking back at the tod who was slowly coming toward them.

He stopped when he was about three feet away from them. He seemed to sniff the air around them lightly.

“Jesus Christ . . .” trailed Mike, “it’s true. But . . .” he said as he caught something else strange. He looked at Hopps and then looked back to Nick. “What the hell is going on here,” he asked slowly as he took a few steps back. “What the hell are you guys planning?”

“Nothing,” said Honey as she looked at him.

“Bull. Shit,” said Mike as he looked between the four of them. “Why does he smell like my dad,” he motioned to Nick, “and why does she smell like her,” he said as he pointed to Judy.

A slew of evil scenarios ran through his mind, not the least of which was that Honey was running some dark and evil conspiracy to kill his dad and replace him with someone more lenient toward prey animals.

It was like some twisted version of  _The Twilight Zone_  or  _Invasion of the Body Snatchers._

“Alright,” said Honey letting out a sigh, “we’ve gotta tell him,” she said as she looked around at the others.

An overwhelming sense of dread washed over the tod. This was the part of the movie where the villains revealed their plot and killed the pipsqueak who discovered their plans.

Mike looked around quickly for something to grab. Seeing nothing but a thick dictionary, he grabbed it and brandished it at Honey.

“Look out!” shouted Nick, “He might read it to you!”

Honey rolled her eyes as she put her paws up and started forward.

“Stay back!” shouted Mike.

“Hey, Mike, get control of yourself,” said Honey in a calming voice. “Everything’s going to be alright.”

“Like slipping into a warm bath,” said Nick.

“Cheese and crackers!” shouted Judy as she lightly elbowed him, “Do you  _not_  get how delicate this is!”

“ _Me!_ ” shouted Nick, “ _She’s_  the one give off the Stepford Wife vibe!”

“Okay, look!” said Honey as she tried regain control of the conversation, “These two mammals,” she said as she gestured to Nick and Judy, “are from another dimension-”

“Nope,” said Mike, turning away. “I’m out,” he said curtly, still clutching the book in his paw.

The ridiculousness of the statement was enough to shatter the atmosphere of fear he felt.

He took a few steps away before he heard a small pop and a new voice added itself to the group.

“Honey, just letting you know that there’s another convoy coming up to meet us. Looks like it might be weapons.”

Mike stopped and turned to see a silver fox looking in the direction of the badger, just having spoken. The newcomer was munching casually on an apple as the two of them spoke.

Honey, distracted, turned away from Mike retreating form and turned to the fox. “No mammal power, though?”

“Doubtful.”

“Well, shit,” said Honey.

Silver looked around at the group before his gaze landed on Mike.

“Who’s the brat?” he said as he looked at the tod, taking another healthy bite of apple.

“Nick’s son,” said Honey, “Mike.”

The young fox only looked at the tall male. “Wh-where did you come from?” said Mike as he looked around.

Silver regarded him quizzically. “What do you mean, ‘How did I get here?’ Didn’t you see me ‘poof’?”

The odd sense of dread came over the tod as he looked at the now-five of them.

“I, uh . . .” stammered Mike, “I should go now.”

The new fox merely smiled. “Go?” he chuckled, “You can’t  _’go.’_ You’ll tell.”

“Stop it, stop it, stop it!” shouted Hopps. “You’re just freaking him out more! Look, as Honey was saying,” she said as she stood up from the couch, “these two are from a different dimension,” she said as she pointed to the couple. “A dimension where I’m not a bitch and your dad is . . . well, your dad. Except he never had you.”

“Hey!” said Nick as he looked at Hopps.

“What? It’s all true,” said Hopps.

“Well . . . yeah,” started Nick, “but . . . I dunno, I wanna be the one to tell that about myself.”

“He’s the one who brought them here,” she said as she motioned to Silver.

“Uh. . . why . . . ?” was all the stunned tod could think to ask.

“To fight a terrible enemy who’s behind the misery in this world,” said Silver.

“You mean Hopps?” asked Mike.

“Worse than her. The human.”

Mike stared at him blankly. A silence hung between them. Finally, “I have no idea . . . what I’m supposed to be feeling here,” he said.

“Just know that he’s behind everything that’s been going on in the city since Hopps became more prominent. He was behind a lot of the things you blame on her.”

“He said the trucks would be here soon,” said Nick, “so I don’t suppose we could have the whole long drawn-out conversation later, could we?”

“How did you find us?” Honey interjected as she looked at Mike.

“I, uh . . . I saw the three of you walking down the hall. I kind of thought that . . . I dunno, I wanted to say, ‘hi,’ but I also wanted to hear what you guys were gonna say, so I followed you guys. And then I saw you talking with  _her._ ”

He clenched his fists. “I still can’t believe that this is going on, that you would be working with her. And what the hell,” he started as everything they had told him started to settle in his brain, “is it with this story about other dimensions, and a mysterious monster?! Don’t bullshit me! I know that  _Hopps_  is the one who’s been behind everything! There’s a logical explanation to this!”

“Yes there is, Mike,” started Silver, “and we just told you what it was.”

“I’m sorry but that’s not true! Mammals don’t just appear and disappear! The world has to make sense! The logical explanation is that Hopps had been behind it all and that all of you are covering for her, and  _you_ ,” he said as he pointed to Nick and Judy, “I have no idea how the hell you fit into all of this, but I swear, if you try to replace my dad or what ever the hell you’re aiming to do-”

Suddenly, the dictionary in his paw rose in the air before him.

Mike let out a yelp as his paw was seemingly glued to the book.

He watched first with apprehension, then with interest as the book’s pages began to flip to different pages, a different word highlighting itself each time:

You

Are

In

Denial

Mike’s jaw dropped, a stupefied expression on his face.

“Okay,” said Silver with more than a hint of boredom in his voice, “I trust you all can deal with this,” he said to the group as he gestured to Mike. “The trucks just started getting here and I’m going to help them with where to park.”

“Thank you for lowering yourself to such a menial task,” said Honey.

The silver fox snerked. “Don’t push it.”

And then he popped away.

Mike stood there, looking at the place where Silver had stood.

He’d been stunned into silence as the mind bomb of what he’d just seen worked its way into his brain.

Another voice called from across the stacks. It was Wilde, his calls for Mike becoming somewhat desperate.

“Over here!” shouted Honey when Mike didn’t answer. “Follow the sound of my voice,” she continued.

Moments later, Wilde rounded the corner to see the four of them standing there.

“I told you to stay away from him!” shouted Wilde as he looked at Hopps and Judy.

“He followed  _us,_  Nick,” said Honey on the defensive.

“I don’t  _care!_ ” he exclaimed. “I don’t want you around my kit,” he said to the two of them. “That means that if he comes into a room, I  _expect_  you to leave it!”

“That’s just not realisti-”

“It is realistic,” started Hopps. “You can see how scared and confused he is.”

“Having to reorganise everything you know about the world from square one can be tough,” said Red as he looked at the young tod. “I know it was for me and Judy,” he finished.

Honey relented. “Okay, I’m sorry,” she said to Wilde. “What can I do to make this better?”

“Keep  _them_  away from my  _son!_ ” he growled. “I don’t want either of you to even look at my son!” he finished. To Wilde, the sight of his son’s reaction to the two bunnies recapitulated every one of the reasons why he hated Hopps. The sight of her had the tod frightened. And most especially he hated to see the way his son seemed to have lost his trust in Honey whom he’d always looked up to.

He looked down at the younger male and found, however, that the lad wasn’t looking at anyone in particular, just staring at a blank space in the group.

“What’s the matter?” asked Wilde. His son’s expression was blank.

Mike merely pointed to the empty spot. “He was right there,” was all he said.

“Huh?” asked Wilde.

“The silver fox was standing right there and then he disappeared.”

“He met Silver?” asked Wilde as he looked at Honey, his tone changed now to something a bit softer.

Honey nodded. “Yeah. So . . . like, from square one, he’s having to figure some things out. But at least now he knows that we’re not lying.”

Wilde give her a dull look. “About  _everything,_  anyway.”

Honey felt the prick of his words in her mind. “What do you mean by that?” she asked.

“Nothing you don’t already know,” said Wilde as he turned away from her, leading his son with him. They were going to have to have a very deep discussion back in his room.

“Tell me specifically,” said Honey.

“I’m not going to rehash this with you. I don’t trust you. I don’t think I’ll ever be able to fully trust you again, and neither will he,” he said as he nodded to his son. “You were his hero, and it turns out you betrayed us all.”

“Hey, now wait a minute!” said Honey as she strode over to the duo, “I  _never_  betrayed  _any_  of you!”

“You did by working with  _her!_ ” he shouted as he pointed to Hopps.

“What she did was under my direction!” returned Honey, “so if you’re going to blame her for what happened in the city—which I’ll remind you  _wasn’t_  her fault but was really because of the  _Human_ —you have to blame me, too!”

“Trust me when I say that I do!” he fired back. “You made it abundantly clear to  _all_  of us that you and Hopps were two peas in a pod! No wonder you have death threats out against you! You’re a manipulative bitch!”

The tide of rage and fury was something the fox had never felt before. All the general righteous anger welled up inside him and struck like thunderbolts. It wasn’t  _just_  his anger at the current circumstances but everything piled up at once—from the time he was a kit till now, the dam of his emotions was breaking lose.

His head was muddled, not thinking clearly as he lost his composure.

Honey broke in before he could say anything else.

“You’re the one who would have left Hopps alone on an island and jeopardised a mission whose failure could have lead to all of our deaths! The information was crucial and you were willing to throw it all away just to get revenge on someone who hasn’t done you or anyone else any harm! Not personally!” she quickly amended, “And any harm she had caused she regrets. Fuck, you know how sorry she is for her tacit participation in  _any_  of the actions in the city, and you  _know_  how sorry I am, too!”

“You mistake me for someone who gives a shit!” shouted Wilde, forgetting his son was there. He wasn’t even listening to Honey. “The only regret I have is that I had to stay behind with the others while the prey-fucking wonder—Zach or whoever the fuck he is—went on and saved the little bitch over there!” he said.

Everyone’s jaw dropped at the statement, and Honey was most especially taken aback.

“She never killed anyone! You’re acting like she’s the sum and the source of everything wrong in the city when she  _isn’t!_  She was a victim of the Human’s machinery as much as anyone else was!”

“She killed mammals when she help create the climate of hate in the city!”

“ _Bullshit!_ ” shouted Honey. “The city was fucked up  _waaay_  before Judy came along!”

“It wasn’t as bad as it is now!”

“What a fucking surprise:  _wrong again!_ ”

“Where’s your proof?!”

“Your dad, for one!” shouted Honey before stopping short.

Wilde bore his teeth and growled. “So you’re gonna bring that up, now?”

“You’re blinding yourself, Nick!” she said insistently as a hint of rationality came into her voice. “You say it wasn’t as bad, but I say it was! Look at your dad! Look at my husband! Look at my  _kit_! Look at Mike’s mom! And you wanna tell me that all of this started with Hopps?! That’s nonsense and you know it!” she finished angrily, emotion glinting in her eyes.

Wilde glared at her, fury coming off of him in waves.

“All of you,” he said at last as he gestured to the four of them, “are forbidden from coming near my son. For that matter,  _I_  don’t wanna see you, either.”

“Nick,” said Honey, somewhat defeatedly as she wiped a paw over her face, “you’ve got it all wrong. Judy . . . she’s never killed anyone, except for Otterton, and you know that she feels deeply sorry for that.”

“Read my lips because you’re too fucking stupid to get it,” he started, “I don’t— _believe—_ you! Every word that comes out of your mouth comes out sideways! If there’s one thing I can do for my son it’s to teach him to stay away from you.”

“I’ll give you a chance to cool off,” started Honey, trying to will control over her emotions. “Maybe later we can hammer things ou-”

“No,” he said. “My next call is to Mr. Big and to Koslov. And we’re taking the Zootopian guard. You and COR and anybody else who wants to associate with you—and Hopps—can go fuck themselves.”

Honey growled. “You can’t do that!”

“Oh, yes I can!” barked Wilde. “I have Mr. Big and Koslov on my side!”

“They aren’t on your side, yet!” shouted Honey.

“When they find out what a hypocrite you’ve been, they will be!”

With that he turned, taking his son’s arm as he marched them out of the place.

Koslov and Mr. Big had been in on the situation with her, but mentioning it to Wilde now, Honey thought, was only going to make the situation worse. She didn’t want to lose the fox—once one of her most trusted allies—but as walked along the shelves, she felt a pang of hurt cut her heart: Hurt for losing someone whom she had, till that moment, considered a friend.

“Nick!” shouted Honey, a sense of regret coming over her. “Nick!” she shouted more loudly, taking a few steps forward.

He ignored her as he marched around the corner, out of view.

They all stood in stunned silence as they watched the place where they’d disappeared.

It was quiet as they all took a moment to collect themselves.

The somber mood seemed to permeate the air all around them. They all gave each other looks signaling how strange the entire confrontation had been—how out of place for the normally rational Wilde.

Nick reached over to Judy and pulled her tightly into his side, reassuring her. “There’s a lot I’m willing to forgive,” he said, “but that was . . . I just don’t . . . I don’t know.”

“It’s the emotions of the day,” said Hopps as she sat up stiffly. “He’s just remembering the day he thought his son died. Now that Mike’s here, it’s all he can think of: The ‘what if’ of the situation.”

She was trying to be charitable, knowing that he had been going through a lot. He wasn’t acting as even headedly as he normally was in spite of the fact that he carried around a lot of anger.

There was so much that was unsaid.

“So . . .” started Judy quietly, “what now?” she asked.

Honey took a deep breath and sighed slightly.

“Now . . .” she trailed, “we have to go upstairs and unpack the trucks.”

-.-.-.-

“Dad! Have you  _completely_  lost your mind?!”

Mike and his father were back in his room. He had never seen his father this furious before and it shocked him. To an extent, he could understand his father’s rage. And yet on the other paw, the extent to which the back and forth had gone had caused Mike to re-examine his own feelings: While he distrusted Hopps as a matter of course, did that really mean that he thought Honey was behind everything that had happened to him in the city the way his father had implied?

Mike hadn’t examined things from quite that perspective: If Hopps was to blame for the things in the city in so far as discrimination and the formenting of hatred went, and it turned out that Hopps was taking orders from Honey—which the badger in the course of the spat had made abundantly clear—logic would dictate that  _Honey_  was then ultimately responsible for the state of things in the city, and that was a leap of logic the tod wasn’t quite prepared to make.

If there’s one thing Mike had been leaning toward, it had been the possibility that Honey had turned traitor; but if Honey was insisting that Hopps had been working for her, meaning effectively for him that  _Honey_  had been the  _real_  terrorist of the city— _that_  presented a conclusion that Mike wasn’t prepared to entertain.

The angry fight between the two mammals he respected most in the world had snapped him out of his initial impressions. He  _knew_  Honey—he had grown up with her, and had known her if not in her role ultimately in charge of the Happy Town Guard then certainly as a member of  _some_  kind of resistance in the city. Another branch of the guard, if he recalled, but located in Zootopia.

He watched his father pace back and forth, not responding to his question, seemingly deep in thought.

“ _Dad!_ ” said Mike again, more insistently, “Come  _on!_  I  _know_  you don’t really think that Honey’s a terrorist!”

Wilde stopped abruptly and regarded his son sharply.

“Mike . . . it’s because of things that that badger did that you almost got killed!”

“Dad!” shouted Mike pleadingly, “Listen to yourself! This is  _Honey_  we’re talking about.  _Honey!_  Since when is she  _’that badger,’_  to us?”

“Mikey, you’re not thinking clearly!” said Wilde insistently. “You look up to her, and she’s your hero, and I get that, but she chose to join up with someone she  _knew_  was doing terrible things.”

“But Dad, she’s not trying to hurt us! I mean, if it hadn’t been for her and all the help she gave us, we wouldn’t’ve been able to get away with  _half_  the things we were doing! If Honey really wanted us dead, if Hopps really were evil, why didn’t they arrest us then? Honey knew where we were, she knew all of how the operation ran—she knew about Wilde Times. And if she and Hopps were that close together, why wouldn’t they have done something  _then?_ ”

Wilde said nothing.

Mike took a breath. “Look, I mean, every time there was a wounded mammal that you had to fix, didn’t they come to us  _because_  of Honey? Isn’t she the one who was in charge of all that?”

Wilde sucked in a deep breath as his face softened. “Mike . . . there’s so much evil in this world. So much hatred. I just . . . I wanted to protect you from it all.” He paused for a moment, and Mike remained silent, seeing that his father was in the middle of a thought. “Mike . . . the mammals that Honey was helping were mammals that were caught up in a system of state sanctioned violence that Hopps created. Or at least helped propped up, even if all she did was propaganda. Honey says that she was in charge of Hopps: Okay, let’s go with that—that means that the system of state sanctioned violence was ultimately permitted by  _her_. She had a connection with the evil things that Hopps was spouting. She  _allowed_  it, Mikey! It’s like . . . shoving someone in a pool and then saving them from drowning!” His voice was soft yet insistent.

Mike was quiet for a moment. “But . . .” Mike piped, “wasn’t Honey right about it having been this way for a while? I mean . . . wasn’t it?”

“It was never this bad,” Wilde insisted. “Not until _she_  came around.”

“I . . .” started Mike. His feelings were teetering. He respected his father, but he couldn’t help the sense that his father was mistaken—that his father’s views were too extreme. “I don’t know. Dad!” started Mike, quietly though intently, “Do you remember my taming party?”

Wilde regarded his son intently. “Yeah, I remember,” he said gruffly.

“Dad . . . that was the worst day of my life, so . . . I don’t know. I mean . . . I don’t know if things were as bad before, Hopps or not,” he started delicately, not liking the idea of contradicting his father, “but I . . . I dunno . . . I just remember things being kind of the same. Like, everything at the same level of shitty,” he said, smiling slightly.

Wilde gave his son the look. “I’ll let that one go, this time, since I forgot and cussed in front of you. And, I mean, yeah—things were . . . bad,” he finished. The city was a fucking hellhole was what he  _wanted_  to say.

“Look, all I’m saying,” said Mike, “is that . . . I dunno, maybe we could give Honey a chance.”

Wilde knelt in front of where his son was sitting on the bed and looked down at the ground in thought for a moment. He shook his head gently after a few seconds and looked up at his son.

“No,” started Wilde softly, “I can’t. I can’t take a chance with her.”

“Dad, ca-”

“No!” said Wilde with more force in his voice. He swallowed as a lump came to his throat. “Mike, I’m not willing to risk you! I almost lost you! Do you know everyday since you were gone I woke up feeling like I had no reason to get out of bed? You’re my son. You’re my flesh and blood! If anything happened to you—if I lost you again after all this, I have no idea what I’d do with myself. I can’t risk you. I can’t risk you around Honey, or Hopps, or any of those other mammals out there.”

“Dad, you can’t keep me locked up in a tower,” said the tod. “This isn’t a fairy tale, and I’m not Rapunzel.”

“Mike, these mammals are  _dangerous!_ ”

“So were you when you were running Wilde Times! Dad, we could’ve been raided at any time! Either of us could have been killed, did you think I didn’t know that?”

“God, I just wanted to keep you away from all this,” said Wilde as he looked around the room.

“And how well did that work out?”

Wilde’s head snapped back to his son. He looked as though he’d been slapped.

The tod immediately felt bad. “Look, I’m sorry—I didn’t mean that in a mean way: I really didn’t!” insisted Mike. “But I mean . . . let’s face facts: It wasn’t a question of  _if_  something was going to happen to me. I knew that someday, someone was gonna get me. I knew that someday I’d have my kit killed, or I’d be killed, or that I’d be declawed.”

Wilde’s ears flattened as he watched his son.

“What?” said Mike as he looked at his dad. “Did you really think I wasn’t going to notice what was going on around me? Did you think it didn’t leave a mark on me when they declawed Fangmeyer? Did you think I didn’t wonder why his cub or his girlfriend weren’t around anymore? I knew that she was killed. And I knew that his cub had been killed too. Or I thought he had been, anyway. The point is that I knew, even if no one told me because I was too young. Did you think I didn’t see the way some kids would come in to class with there paws all bandaged up? Did you think I didn’t get what was happening when all those preds were being brought in to you? Dad, I was scared. I’ve been scared my whole life. You let me have Wilde Times, though, and that was really something. You let me escape. But I was always scared deep down. I  _never_  knew when it was going to be my turn.” The tod patted his left shoulder. “It was finally my turn, Dad. And I got off lucky.”

Wilde put a paw over his face, unable to stop the tears that came to his eyes.

“I . . . I never meant any of this for you . . .” trailed Wilde.

“I know, Dad,” said Mike as he brought his dad in for a hug. “But it’s not your fault. It’s the city’s fault. It’s their fault, not yours.”

After a moment, they finally let go of each other.

“I still want to take you out of here,” said Wilde.

“Dad . . . .”

“No, I mean it,” said Wilde patiently. “I don’t feel safe with you here.”

“But Dad,  _I_  feel safe.”

“It’s  _not_  safe here, though.”

“Dad, listen, please. Just listen: I feel safe here. I don’t wanna go anywhere else. We have the Happy Town and Zootopian Guards here—or some of them. We have Honey here—and I know you don’t like her but I still do and I trust her. And Jack’s here, too, you said. And I know I like him and his team. They made us feel safe and . . . I don’t know. I feel . . . free. I feel like I don’t wanna move around anymore.”

“Mike . . . .”

“Dad,  _please._  I just wanna start going back to school. I just wanna . . . go back to normal for a little bit. I just want things to be regular again.”

“Mike, this isn’t regular. We might find someplace better. Someplace where it’s all pred. Where we don’t have to worry about things like prejudice.”

“But Dad, don’t you wanna stay to at least fight for the city?”

“No.”

“What?!” shouted the tod as he stood up. “How could you  _not?!_ ”

“Don’t take that tone with me, first of all,” said Wilde. “And secondly, if you’ll give me a chance, I can tell you  _why,_ ” he said sternly though patiently.

Mike took a breath and huffed, sitting back down.

Wilde also took a calming breath before he continued. “Mike . . . when you were born . . . I made myself a promise. A promise to always keep you safe: A promise to make sure that you were always out of harm’s way. From the time you were a kit, small enough to fit into the palm of my paw, I knew that my only loyalty above everything else was going to be keeping you safe. The reason why I don’t care about staying to fight for the city or for anyone else is because my number one loyalty is to  _you._  I scrambled to find work when you were born. I scrambled and scratched out a living to make sure you were safe. To make sure you were comfortable. It was a no holds bared fight against the city and anyone who stood in my way to make sure that you would be able to have it better than I did. Whatever leads to a better life for you—it’s worth me doing it so that  _you_  don’t have to because I love you, and I don’t want anything to happen to you. So yeah, I don’t feel I owe the city anything—I owe the city nothing more than I owe you. You’re my number one responsibility.”

Mike was looking down, clearly emotional as he struggled with what his father was saying.

“You want what’s in my best interest, Dad,” he asked.

Wilde nodded slightly.

“Then . . . let’s stay and fight.”

“Mike . . . .”

“I’m not a kit anymore. I’m gonna be an adult, soon. Someday, I’m gonna have kits, too. And I want  _them_  to have a better life than me. I don’t want to run away, Dad. I wanna stay. I wanna fight!”

“I’m not gonna let you go to war.”

“I know, I know I’m too young, but . . . we have to stay and help. I don’t wanna have to worry that somewhere out there in the world is a land called Zootopia that plans on destroying preds all around the world.”

Wilde wiped a paw over his face, his face impassive as he looked to the side in deep thought. He closed his eyes as the exhaustion of the emotions of the day left his mind feeling somewhat tired. Maybe he’d be thinking more clearly later, but for now, it seemed his son had made his decision.

“You really feel safe here?” asked Wilde as he looked at his son, finally.

Mike nodded with certainty.

“And you’re sure you wanna stay?”

“I just want a chance to do what’s right. I wanna go back to normal . . . there are so many things that I want. But right now, I just wanna feel like things’re okay. Like things are at least  _kinda_  normal.”

Wilde closed his eyes and took another breath, letting it out slowly.

“Alright,” he said softly, slowly, as he nodded his head slightly. “We’ll stay.”

Mike’s smile made him smile. He was still worried for his son, and still wanted him to stay away from the others, but that was something to deal with later.

Wilde took a deep breath and thought.

Now he just had to figure out how he was gonna make up with Honey.

-.-.-.-

He opened his eyes and stared up at the ceiling. His vision swam in darkness and yet somehow, his vision was sharper than it had ever been before, able to make out features of the room he was in.

He sucked in a deep breath, his head aching dully at the sensations flowing through him. Hunger and thirst were gone: What consumed him now was an abiding fury and desire to do violence and harm.

It was wholly different from the fear he’d felt three nights ago. When he’d first taken the Human’s blood.

The creature bolted upright at the memory of the figure: His pale ghostly skin etched in his brain. His eyes immediately began to dart around, searching for the creature in the blackness.

He knew he was here.

“At ease, Slave,” came the deep baritone voice. “You will not come to harm. Why, do you think you should be afraid of your new father?”

The creature rose from the table and hopped off.

He was naked in the darkness, his black fur blending him perfectly with atmosphere.

“Father,” he growled as he wandered.

“The time you’ve taken on your journey toward rebirth has made you strong.”

The voice echoed through him.

The thirst for flesh and blood became overwhelming he growled loudly.

“Not to worry, my ministers always awaken hungry. It’s perfectly natural. The first is always the hardest. I find the more you kill your first time the more control you end up with.”

The clanking of machinery was heard behind the creature.

He turned and saw two wide doors open before him. It took him a moment to realise what it was he was seeing.

Before him stood a crowed of what appeared to be haggard-looking preds. Their faces lit up instantly in terror when they saw him.

They were grouped together, males, females, and children.

He growled and set his face in anger as the echoing order resounded in his heart:

“Feed!”


	19. Trial and Error

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Things become tense as infighting rears its ugly head. Silver tries to get a handle on things by reminding the group that they need to work together to rid the planet of the real evil facing their world and threatening their very existence. Wilde decides to try making a kind of peace with Hopps, but will it hold? Silver decides to train the troops and gives them a demonstration of what he and others of his kind are capable of. Will the troops be disheartened and dissuaded or will they face the challenges ahead? Only time will tell.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Special Acknowledgement: First and foremost I would like to thank my editor Soildier for his help in preparing this chapter.
> 
> Author's Note: Greetings everybody! I wanted to thank everybody who reviewed this chapter as the story progresses. I can't tell you how pleased i am that so many of you are enjoying the work I produce. It's a huge relief. I also want to thank those of you who read this story and who continue to support it. The fact that so any of yoy continue to stick by it makes me very glad.
> 
> In this upcoming month, I'm getting ready to start my graduate program-in about two weeks. I hope that I'll be able to keep up the story but circumstances and the heavy workload including research may force me to focus on my studies. Depending on how intensive some of the classes I'm taking are, I have to anticipate that I may not be able to finish chapters on time in the monthly fashion that I was able to achieve at this moment. I hope you'll be able to bear with me as I navigate my new academic surroundings.
> 
> As always, please review as I find it immensely helpful!
> 
> That's all for now, and as always, happy reading!
> 
> General Statement: As I stated before, I welcome any and all criticism pertaining to the story. If I miss a bit of grammar here or there let me know so I can fix it. If there's something that strikes you a mistake or an error let me know so that I can fix that, too; and yes, I do fix mistakes that are pointed out to me. Speaking from personal experience, nothing can take me out of a story more than a misspelt word or a grammatical mistake—especially if they're too common. Any other comments, questions, or concerns? Feel free to PM me.
> 
> Disclaimer: This is a work of fanfiction and has no claim whatsoever on the characters of Nick Wilde and Judy Hopps who are the sole property of The Walt Disney Company. In no way have I sought money, monetary value, nor profit of any kind for the writing of this story.

* * *

 

“Something’s wrong!” said Nick as he shot up in bed.

It was late afternoon, and after the laborious task of unpacking the truck, the two of them had come down stairs to enjoy a quick nap.

Nick was panting rapidly as Judy stirred from her sleep, having been thrown slightly as she’d lain across his naked chest.

“Cheese and crackers, Nick, what is the  _matter_  with you?” she said groggily as the initial surprise wore off. The jolt of having been awoken so suddenly got on her nerves as she turned to Nick, fuming.

The look was wiped from her face when she saw his face, noting the look of fear in his eyes as he looked around as though trying get a sense of where he was.

“Nick, what is it?” she asked as she sat up slightly, become somewhat agitated herself, now.

Nick gulped a few times as his panting slowed.

Without a moment’s hesitation, Judy hopped off the bed, going across the room to the tiny writing desk. She brought a pitcher sitting on it over to the night stand and poured a glass of water, handing it to Nick he took it absently and began taking a long drink from it. He handed it back to her and she poured him another which he gratefully took. He looked over at her out of the corner of his eye as he drank and nodded to her thankfully.

Handing the glass back to her, she eyed him carefully. “Do you need more?” she asked.

“That would be good, thanks,” he said.

There was something lacking in his voice, something tired and fearful and defeated.

As she handed him the third glass, she ventured to speak. “What’s going on? Bad dream?”

“Something like that,” he gulped between sips. Finishing the last glass, he let out a gasp of satisfaction.

“Sometimes that happens when you get dehydrated,” she added tentatively. “We were doing a lot of work earlier: maybe you just didn’t get enough to drink afterward.”

Nick shook his head. “This is different, Carrots,” he murmured. “This is real.”

“What’re you talking about?” she asked. “Did you see something? Like you did with Silver and the other’s and-”

“No. No,” said Nick slowly. “It was nothing like that. Well, not exactly,” he trailed vaguely.

She waited for him to continue, not wanting to prod.

“It was real, or it felt like it was real—just like what happened with that dream with . . . Elder or whoever that was.”

Judy nodded. “Yeah. This felt real, too?”

“Just like it. Like I was right there seeing it. I don’t know how, but . . . .”

“But?” prompted Judy.

“I don’t know. So much of it is faded, now. But there was blood. Lots of blood. And mammals screaming.”

“Screaming? What were they saying?” she asked as she gripped his arm.

“They were yelling . . . about being eaten.”

Judy wrapped herself around Nick, straddling his legs and hugging him tightly.

“You’re not there, Nick. You’re here with me, you got it? It wasn’t real. It  _can’t_  have been real.”

“Judy . . .” he said tremblingly as he hugged her back, “. . . it was real.”

She nuzzled into his chest more tightly.

“Why is this happening, Nick?” she sobbed as she huddled into. “This place is too much. Why can’t it just be some kind of mortal threat we have to face? Something rational? Some bad thing we can take care of if we just work hard? It’s like all the control has been taken out of our paws. And now you’re talking about mammals being eaten?”

“By  _something_ , Judy. I don’t know what it is. Something that shouldn’t exist.”

She wrapped her arms around his neck and pulled him into her, nuzzling into his neck.

“Are you sure it’s a threat to us?” she asked.

Nick nodded with certainty.

“Then we have to tell them as soon as possible,” she continued.

Nick lay back and drew her down with him.

“We can spare five minutes,” he said as he lay back.

She sprawled over him and let out a deep, shuddering breath.

“We’ll be okay, Carrots,” he said. “I promise you we’ll be okay.”

“Nick, we won’t be okay,” she said. “Already this place is taking a toll on us and we’ve only been here five days. It’ll be midnight in seven hours, and we’ll be on our sixth day, and already I feel like I’ve had enough of this place for a lifetime. I want to help, but at the same time I can’t help hoping that I’ll wake up with you in your apartment, the night after our first time, and things’ll be just like they were.”

“I know, Carrots,” he whispered. “I’m scared, too.”

“It’s nice of Silver to make sure that we’re under his protection and the rest of COR.”

“Considering everything out there waiting for us, I am, too. I still wish there could be just a little more freedom in his list of rules for us,” she murmured.

He wrapped his arms around her in a hug and took in her scent.

After a beat, he felt her move on top of him.

Sitting, up she turned and hopped off him before sliding off the bed.

“We better get dressed,” she said as she moved. “We have to let the others know what you saw.”

“Hon, we don’t even know what the threat is,” he said as he slid off the bed behind her.

She turned to him as he pulled on his boxers. “I know, but then maybe that’s why we ought to have Silver there, too. He knows, probably, how to interpret this kind of stuff.”

“I’m surprised you’re the one wanting to bring him in on this.”

“If it’s a super mammalian threat, like one of those things that chased us down in the street the other night, we don’t have any choice. I think he’s the one who killed those . . . feral machine things when we were in the city. If what you saw in your dream was anything like that-”

“It was worse, Carrots,” he said. He stopped in the middle of buttoning his shirt and looked at her. “It was so much worse. I don’t know what it was, but . . . the screams . . . .” He couldn’t continue as he dropped to his knees. The fading vision was clear enough, terrifying in what it revealed and in what it occulted. Whatever came through was nothing short of a monstrous sacrifice—a holocaust of blood and terrified wailing.

Judy ran over to him, her blouse hanging open as she caressed his cheek.

His head was in his paws as he tried to keep from seeing the awful thing.

“Open your eyes, Nick,” she insisted.

Closing his eyes would only make the vision more vivid. The darkness of their room wasn’t helping. She quickly flipped on the light. She had no idea whether it would work, but she wanted to make this reality realer to him than what he had seen in his vision.

The bright light banished the shadows quickly and the room looked normal, just like her own in their world.

“Nick, look!” she insisted again, taking his wrists. “You’re here now. Look at me! You’re not there anymore. Whatever you saw, we can fix it.”

“I don’t-”

“Then if we can’t fix it we can at least get justice for the mammals who  _might_  have died. Nick, be proactive! There was an injustice! There was a horror! So let’s do something about it. Let’s get a plan together! We can tell Silver and all the others who need to know right away. We can alert everyone and we can come up with a plan. We can do something about this!”

Her words had started to work their magic. He had been living in the vision, and the horror was all too real, still. Now, however, Judy’s logic and practicality were clearing things up. Her reassuring insistence that something could be done to somehow rectify what he had seen—if indeed it had been real—went a long way. Exposing his vision to more individuals who could shoulder the terrifying experience would also go a long way.

“Okay . . .” he breathed, his breath still panting slightly, “okay . . .” he trailed again. “Let’s tell Silver first.”

“Why him?” she asked.

“Because . . . I mean, this is something supernatural. Something way out of the ordinary.”

“Right . . . and he’s the only one who might believe us.”

Nick nodded. “At least with him on our side, we— _I’d—_ have someone backing me up.”

“No,” said Judy, “we,” she corrected. “I believe you. I’m with you in this,” she said as she caressed his cheek again.”

He nodded gratefully and drew her in for a soft kiss before rising again to do up his shirt.

She went back to her own clothes, and soon enough they were dressed and out the door.

It wasn’t hard to find Silver. He seemed to prefer the quiet places of the home where he wouldn’t be disturbed.

After searching a few places where they saw there were few individuals, they at last found him in the library, idly looking at what appeared to be a children’s book.  _The Little Match Girl._

They stood there watching him for a few moments, not knowing whether he was in a mood to interrupt him.

“If the two of you are done gawking, maybe you could tell me why you’ve sought me out.”

“Oh, uh . . .” trailed Judy nervously, “we didn’t want to disturb you.”

“You disturbed me the moment you entered the library,” he said curtly.

“Sorry,” she said.

“It’s fine,” he sighed slightly as he closed the book. “I can tell something’s troubling you,” he said. “What’s the matter?”

“Were you reading  _The Little Match Girl?_ ” asked Judy.

Silver looked down. “Yeah,” he said.

“I used to read that over and over again,” she said, somewhat laughingly. “I’d read it again and again and-”

“-keep hoping the ending would change,” nodded Silver as he set the book down on a low coffee table in front of him. “I know.”

Judy smiled somewhat uncomfortably.

“It seems like no matter where I go, you’re the same bunny, through and through.”

His voice had taken on an odd and distant tone that she wasn’t sure what to do with. She only nodded slightly, not sure what to say.

“Sorry!” he said as he shook from his reverie, “You came to me for a reason,” he said.

“I had another vision,” said Nick.

Silver looked at him. “Indeed?”

Nick nodded.

“About Elder,” Silver stated.

Nick shook his head, unsure of how to describe what he saw and not truly wanting to recall it.

The fox cocked an eyebrow as he looked at Nick. “Then?”

“Can you just . . . read it from my mind?”

Silver only looked on silently. “If . . . that makes it easier for you, I guess. Can’t you just tell me?” he asked.

Nick nodded. “I can, but that . . . might make it more real.”

“Call up the vision. It at least needs to be on the surface of your mind.”

Nick bit his lip but nodded.

The silver fox closed his eyes in concentration. Judy watched as his eyebrows knit together slightly before his eyes flashed open.

“I’ve seen enough,” the fox spat.

Nick looked on mournfully, but nodded appreciatively down at his mate when she hugged into his side for support.

The silver fox was silent for several moments before he stood up slowly.

“We need to tell the others,” said Judy. “We were hoping . . . you’d be able to tell us whether what he saw was real or no-”

“It was real,” said Silver flatly. “And you’re right. Nick . . . tell them what you saw.”

-.-.-.-

The warm, amber hues of light that streamed from the decorative lamps hanging from the painted ceiling belied the startling visage of the pallid creature standing beneath them.

The Human stood in front of a mirror as ghostly tendrils of darkness seemed to swirl about, just behind the glass.

“As agreed and correspondent to your command, Eldra, I stand before you and await your instruction.”

For a moment there was nothing. Then, the shadows behind the mirrored glass began to gather thick in places; gathering and separating until at last a figure, made from the shadows themselves, took shape before the ethereal and hauntingly beautiful face shone from out of the shadows.

The Human said nothing, remaining completely dumb as he stood and watched her.

“Tremble, Slave,” she said, her voice sounding sweet and clear like fresh water, cool and soothing in spite of their message. “The council I’ve held with the others having to do with you had led to some rather unfortunate conclusion that you are unable and underprepared to deal with the threat you are facing in the lands that you currently hold in your domain. The task has fallen to me to oversee the end of the project you have in the last—what is it? Seventy years?—been unable to bring to completion.”

“Your Honour, don’t judge my failures, judge my successes, too! Seventy years is an eye-blink!”

“The council have judged your good works and found them wanting.”

“Excellency! Anassa! Hear me! I have brought this land closer than anyone else has been able to! Within a month, this planet should be in our power!” he said as he approached the mirror.

“No more!” she said, holding up a hand to stop him, “It has been decided.”

The tone of finality in her voice stopped him.

“Then . . . I await your instruction,” he said, unable to hide the bitterness from his tone.

Refusing to take the bait, she swiftly turned the conversation to other matters.

“Your knight. He grows his power?”

The Human nodded. “Indeed. He’s feeding, now.”

“Were you able to find enough mammals?”

“Without a problem at all. The police have been furnishing us with enough young predators. They’re going on to greatness as we speak.”

“Good. Then we’re right on track. The attack should be ready to go by tomorrow.”

“And be caught almost unawares.”

“Almost?” she said softly. “What do you mean?”

The Human paused for a moment, unsure of how to phrase what he was thinking.

“Eldra,” he started as he thought, “while the knight was feeding earlier, I felt what I could only describe as . . . a  _presence_  somewhere within this prison.”

“A presence?”

“Something from somewhere else. Not from this universe.”

“You mean Nemesis?”

“No, it isn’t he, no,” said the Human. “Something else. Something . . . I don’t know. But it wasn’t one of us.”

The beautiful woman in the mirror for once appeared perplexed.

“I only sense one incursion into this reality that wasn’t brought on by us,” she said after a moment. “There’s nothing here that shouldn’t be. Except for you and Nemesis, of course. And me, too—but that’s later,” she said thoughtfully.

“It was against us. I sensed its horror at the feed. I knew that it was witnessing it.”

She appeared thoughtful. “After I make my arrival,” she said after a moment, “I’ll make short work of any odd occurrences.”

The Human nodded. “Understood, Commander.”

“Hmm,” se murmured as she thought to herself. “At any rate, aside the bad news delivered on behalf of the council, I also have the plan I promised you. First, I have this,” she said as a small, portable object appeared floating above the palm of her left hand.

“What is that?” he asked as he looked at it.

The object was flat and silver-looking.

“It’s a portable cloaking device. Good for inhibiting nemesis’ senses. It’s meant for the knight you’re training. Soon, when he’s gorged himself enough and at last becomes civilised enough to speak in long sentences and wear clothes, I suggest you have him wear this. It also has the power to camouflage him and make him invisible. It’ll be one of his greatest advantages.”

The Human looked on in awe. “You do me too much honour.”

She let out a lilting laugh, sounding pure and musical, like ringing bells, before she ceased. “I do you no honour. Forbid such a thing,” she said. “The honour is  _ours,_ ” she said, referring to her and the council.

“Mistress, Eldra, with this the ‘accident’ at Judy’s house will be something their history books will remember forever!”

“Oh, no,” she said as she shook her head softly. “My rulership has just begun and I intend to rule by fear. Your politicking has wasted time. I don’t want an accident at her home nor even a disaster: I want a catastrophe! I’m leaving my mark here and sending a message: I will rule this land, and all who side with me will not face death but have eternal life.”

A smile turned up on the Human’s face. “Indeed so, Mistress.”

“Sweeten your wine with poison,” she said softly. “Have your enemy quaff nearly half the bottle before they realise their undoing. You know me, and you know our power,” she said softly. “We never take those who are unwilling.”

-.-.-.-

Nick finished telling the others his vision as he stood in a downstairs conference room full of members of the Zootopian guard who grimly listened. Among those present were Honey, Hopps, Wilde, Judy, a recovering Jack, and Wilde’s own gang of Finnick, Clawhauser, Fangmeyer, and Wolford.

Nick finished speaking and glanced nervously over at Silver who was looking at the ground in silent thought.

“What’re we supposed to do with that information?” asked Groe. “We don’t take dreams as threats.”

“It wasn’t a dream, soldier,” said Silver as he turned to look up at the wolf. “What he saw, after I examined his vision, was real.”

The other soldiers looked even more squeamish now than they had been while Wilde simply looked down at the ground with his head in his paws.

“There’s no way . . . mammals eating other mammals?” said Tobias.

“It’s disgusting!” shouted one of the raccoons.

“The fuck is  _wrong_  with the city?!” shouted one of Jack’s soldiers.

“We have no evidence that’s true!” shouted the other.

“Be quiet,” said Silver quietly. “Now since you don’t believe me, I’ve been able to . . . extract the vision from Red’s mind. You see it and you tell me whether you think it’s real. But be forewarned, it’s from a first-person perspective.”

“You mean . . . from the perspective of the mammal doing the eating?” asked Honey.

Silver nodded. “Whoever wants to see it, I’ll show you. You tell me whether it’s real. I mean, I already know it is, but I’ve noticed lately that you mammals only believe what you can see.”

After a moment, Honey raised her paw. “I need to see it,” she said. She was duty bound to see it. It was her job to review video recordings of terrible events to see whether the threat was real. She had to see this, too.

She closed her eyes, and Silver gently placed a paw on her head, threading his fingers through her fur.

Suddenly she sucked in a breath. An instant later she jumped up as Silver withdrew his paw.

“Memories and visions don’t work like video recordings. You can see something that might take an hour or two to watch on film in the space of a couple seconds. Time has not passed since you first felt me lay my paw on you.”

Honey nodded slightly and turned to the others. “You all need to see it,” she said softly. “See it, because you need to know what it is that we’re fighting against.”

“You’re not serious!” shouted one of the soldiers from the back. “You don’t mean that it’s really real?”

She nodded slightly. “It’s . . . real . . .” she trailed. “You need to see it. But I’m not going to make you,” she said to the soldier who’d spoken. “The vision is traumatic and . . . terrifying. But . . . those soldiers of mine and of Jack’s . . . you’ve had to review similar stuff before, I know. Hopps . . . this may be a bit triggering for you but it’s nothing you haven’t seen before. Still, I’m not going to make any of you see it of you don’t want to.”

She looked at the crowd.

Silver looked at her out of the corner of her eye. “All except Jack because of you-know-why.”

She nodded slightly to herself.

She watched as the COR soldiers, in a sign that they were volunteering, begrudgingly, closed their eyes.

As though he were conferring some eerie and haunting reverse-benediction, she watched as the silver fox extended his paw over the gathered.

In the space of two seconds, all of them were jumping up out of their seats or starting back in fear, their eyes flying open and looking around themselves in a pressing and ardent need to reorient themselves.

“Jesus Christ!” shouted a few members.

“What the fuck was that?!” shouted another.

“There’s no fucking way that can be real:  _we don’t eat each other! That’s fucking disgusting!_ ”

Silver whistled loudly calling all the Zootopian guards and soldiers to attention.

When the crowed quieted, they all looked at him expectantly while the civilian Zootopians minus Jack looked on apprehensively, understanding clearly from the reactions of the COR members that they had seen something awful.

“What you just saw,” started Silver, “was the creation of a creature that the human is intending to use against you.”

They all looked at the fox stunned.

“And he’s going to have more than one, eventually. It doesn’t take a genius to know that he’s going to use them against you all. Anyone who gets in his way is going to be in very serious danger.”

“So what in the fuck are we supposed to do about it?” said Arborel.

“Well, if you’ll listen to teacher . . .” said the silver fox before trailing off as he got a good look at the tiger.

The feline seemed more shaken than any of the other soldiers and guards. Odd than an apparently experienced battle tactician who’d managed to get through the raid of Zootopia and its relative shittiness was now looking somewhat pale at what he’d seen in the vision. Admittedly, the vision was worse than what they’d endured in terms of psychological torment, but still.

Honey noticed it too and stepped toward him to get a better look at the big cat.

“Is there something the matter?” she asked.

His eyes shifted and he looked to the side. He took a deep sigh.

“I saw someone . . . in the crowd that I knew.”

Several others around him hissed through their teeth.

Honey pressed her lips shut for a moment before speaking. “Did . . . I mean . . . .”

“Yeah,” said Arborel, “he’s the leopard. The one . . . I . . . whatever-the-fuck-it-was tore its throat out.”

“Jesus!” hissed Groe. They all knew exactly who Aborel meant. They’d all had the same vision.

“So . . .” trailed Arborel slowly as he looked toward the front of the room at the silver fox, “what the hell is that thing and how do we kill it?”

Several others hooted in support, but Arborel clearly wasn’t feeling it. He made eye contact with the fox at the front who only let out a small sigh.

“You don’t kill it,” said Silver as the hooting died down, “ _I_  do.”

“There’s only one of you,” he returned.

“One of me is enough,” replied Silver, his voice calm. He could read the tiger’s mood, and he knew that vengeance was a path down which he could not tread without killing himself. “You don’t stand a chance against the human or anything he throws at you of his creation personally. There are beings of his making that would destroy you in one-on-one combat. If he’d had the opportunity to unleash his creatures on you—which he did, by the way, and I stopped them—there wouldn’t have been a trace left behind. I can guarantee it. There are rules in a game of war—the human is playing by his own and only I have the ability to match him.”

“So then we’re all just supposed to sit around twiddling our thumbs?” said Forester.

“When it comes to this, yes,” the fox insisted. “There is no way to defeat this thing. Even now, it’s growing stronger. From the stage in its development I’d say it’s only a day from being ready. Once it finishes gorging itself on the dead, it will regain some semblance of intelligence and continue training.”

“What is it, anyway?” asked Tobias.

“Its species?” asked Silver.

“No, I mean, what  _is_  it?” asked the fossa.

“Something dead come back to life,” replied Silver.

“A revenant?” asked Honey.

“Gold star for you,” replied Silver as he turned to see her, “took the words right out of my mouth. That’s exactly what it is.”

“So then, why are you telling us this if there’s nothing we can do about it?” asked one of Jack’s soldiers.

“Because you need to know the game you’re playing now,” replied Silver over the crowd. “The stakes are very high—you’re not fighting for Bunnyburrow or the Triburrow Area or even Zootopia: If you lose this game, you’re losing your life. You’re losing this planet. You’re losing every good thing that exists here.”

Honey nodded. “He’s right,” she said as she looked at the others. “You all have to have known, as I knew when I found out through Judy what City Hall was capable of, that they weren’t ready to stop at just Zootopia. I knew their aim was eventually to take over this area, spreading its malignant message all over the globe.”

“With or without Sergeant Hopps’ help, am I right?” asked Groe, a bitter tone in his voice.

In spite of his having been redressed by Honey earlier, he still harboured his reservations regarding the bunny. In spite of his acquiescing to working with the bunny, he had a lot to work through.

Honey sighed in exasperation at the wolf’s words. “Oh, please, not this again.  _Now_  is not the time to be bringing up the things that separate us.”

“Oh really?” asked Elhsand behind Groe, “because now seems like the perfect time. We’re talking about what we’re facing: we’re talking battle plans, kinda—I think one of the  _big_  questions we need to bring up now is who’s going to lead us?”

“Who’s leading you specifically?” asked Honey. “It’s Groe, but he’s working with Hopps. You all are. That was the deal that I made with Groe, right?”

She cocked an eyebrow: she expected an answer in the affirmative.

Groe gave her a furious look but nodded. He felt as though he were being redressed in front of his group and it was demoralising. But after what he and his team did to Hopps—their commander when they were raiding the city for dead drops—the punishment was admittedly light considering the other option was losing his command entirely.

“I asked you for your word Groe.”

“And I . . . gave it to you,” said wolf in response. “I just . . . you can’t expect me to set aside my feelings.”

“Who said anything about setting aside your feelings?” she said as she looked around Groe’s group who seemed to be growing in their discomfort. “You can have your feelings. Mention them, even. But your feelings are also manageable because you’re all adults and are responsible for your actions. I know you have misgivings about working with Hopps. What I’m telling you is that an appropriate response in managing those misgivings does not include assault, threats of violence, or abandoning your commander in the field. Or am I wrong?” When no one responded, she continued. “I’m serious: Tell me if I’ve gone nuts.”

The tense silence that followed felt like the tense quiet before an explosion. At last, the pressure came to a head.

Elhsand let out a growl of frustration before exploding in a shout of anger. “Come on!” he said to Jack’s team. “Are we really gonna take this from someone who’s been in cahoots with Hopps?!” He turned to Honey. “You have no authority over us!”

“I have enough!” she retorted.

“If you had half the brains you had when you were running the guard in Happy Town,” he shouted, “you’d see that the best option for all of us right now is for you to step down! You  _and_  that little bitch! Don’t you get it?  _We’re_  not the ones splitting up COR,  _you_  are! Don’t you understand tha-”

“It is  _you_  who don’t understand,  _Sir!_ ” she returned sharply as she cut him off. “I  _am_  the commander of this wing of COR until decided otherwise; and until then, I will execute my command to the best of my ability. Now hear this! Until I’m asked to step down, you  _are_  expected to follow the orders that I give and the orders of any commanding officer to whom I give my authority. Is  _that_  understood?”

She levelled a fierce glare at the squad. Several looked like they wanted to argue, but thought better of it and shut their mouths.

“There is only  _one_  commander of this wing of COR,” she emphasised. “Only  _one_  authority, and it rests with me after I was elected by members from  _every_  wing of COR, but most especially members from this wing.”

“Not us,” murmured Groe.

“Not by you,” she replied, “but by Koslov and Mr. Big and a few other names you’ll be surprised to learn,” she said as she glanced at Wilde who looked away. “I’ve been reasonable. More than fair because I want us all playing by the same rules and on the same side. Goddamn you for making me have to pull rank like this, because it really fucking sucks,” she said as she cursed.

The wolf let out a mirthless laugh. “So this is the collegiality you were touting back in Happy Town?” taunted Elhsand. “You’ve just decided to be a tyrant now? We have to do what you say or you’ll bust us down?”

“Hey,” said Honey, striding forward, though her tone was much more subdued, “I’ve had commanding officers and wing-commanders whose orders were arbitrary. Just the most contrary mammals you ever did meet,” she said as she came to a stop, “You said yes, they said no; black, they said white; left, right; right, wrong: Just flexing their muscles to show their power. That is  _not_  who I want to be. What you’re missing in your assessment of the current rift between us is that  _you’re_  the ones who did something wrong, not  _me,_ ” she said. “You left your commander in the field and would have left her to fend for herself if she hadn’t had help from Ensign Zach. You don’t get to lecture me about morality when you yourselves have unclean paws.”

Elhsand turned to one of the other groups near him. “And you’re still going to side with Honey and anyone else on her side? Are we all really gonna stand for this?”

“We’re with Jack,” said one of the wolves standing with a large group of others who seemed to be nodding in agreement.

“Are you guys serious?” said Elhsand as he eyed them critically, “You know he’s working with Honey and Hopps, right?” added the fox.

“We’re with Jack,” said the wolf again, firmly, crossing his arms. “He’s never led us astray.”

“He’s leading you astray now if he’s telling you to work with anyone one who’s an ally of  _hers!_ ” he said as he pointed at Honey.

“Then maybe we know better than to defy the orders of our commander. You threatened to murder your fucking troop leader!”

“I’m surprised someone hasn’t already!” returned Elhsand.

“That’s enough!” shouted Honey. “Are you seriously trying to incite a mutiny in this meeting?! We’re talking about bigger things than the problems  _any one_  of you might have with Hopps!”

“Because she’s the main fucking problem!” shouted Elhsand, rounding on the badger and stalking forward. “We’re learning all of this fucking shit about the Human—about how he’s creating all of these monsters that fucking eat each other and Hopps—who’s been working with City Hall the whole fucking time on  _your_  orders—was in on it!”

“Wow, so you’re just going to work all kinds of mental gymnastics to make it so that all of this is Judy’s fault?” returned Honey. “I suppose she passed all those anti-pred laws, too?”

“Well, she might as  _well_  have!” growled Elhsand.

“Then why the hell am I even here?! Why are  _any_  of us here if we’re all really on the Human’s side?” The only way she thought she might make her point is if she took everything to the logical extreme.

“I don’t know about you,” he replied, “but I know that Hopps probably switched sides to save her life.”

“Okay, I’m nearly done with this argument,” said Honey as she turned away, “but before I dismiss you, let me ask, what would it take to convince you that Hopps is not a threat?”

“Oh, I never said she was a threat—I’m pretty sure any one of us could dispatch her with one tap to the head: I’m saying that she’s guilty of the shitty way preds’ve been treated!”

“She isn’t,” said Honey calmly as she stepped forward again. “She took on the role of a monster to take down a monster, even at the cost of her own life. The only reason she’s here now is because Dr. Wilde saved her. She was shot with a tranq gun and pushed off a cliff. That’s not something you do to someone who’s on your side.”

Elhsand’s argument was crumbing. “Alright, even if she wasn’t on their side, she still did a lot of damage to us,” he said.

“And she did a lot to try and save us,” said Honey. “Have you forgotten that I’m a pred, too? What on Earth would I have to gain from having Judy do any of the things that she did publicly  _unless_  she were also doing something else to help us?” she asked.

The room was quiet for a moment.

“Whoever saves one life,” started Silver, “has saved the world entire.”

Everyone turned to regard the fox who seemed to be looking at each mammal in turn.

“What a sad waste of creatures you’ve all turned out to be,” he said as he scanned them. “Your short-sightedness is blinding you to the terrible future awaiting you. You do not know what manner of fight lies before you all. At this very moment, the  _human_ is planning to suck the life out of this planet and all of your loved ones. At this moment, there is an existence worse than death awaiting you all. The creature Nick saw in his vision was once someone like you, but was twisted by the human to become what you saw: a flesh eating cannibal. Those are the kinds of things that the human does to those around him. He is corruption itself in every sense of the word. For years,  _he_  has been searching through the minds of those in power, sowing putrefaction, hatred, and division in his wake. You are falling into his trap even as we speak by even considering the infighting you seem to be about.”

“Oh, come on! He couldn’t have gotten this far without help!” called Elhsand.

Silver eyed the fox harshly. “And he had it—but  _not_  from Hopps,” he said, keeping his anger from flaring. “The human has been on this planet for some seventy years. Inch by inch, he’s been tweaking parts of the development of your timeline to make it acrid and uncaring. He’s been sowing dissent and hatred for years now. Anything Hopps  _might_  have contributed to the already polluted structure of this land while carrying out her duties is a drop in the bucket compared to everything the human’s done. Do you understand me?” asked the silver fox seriously as he looked from Elhsand to regard the others in the room.

“Do you understand,” he continued, “that this is a fight for your very survival? Do you get that the powers that I have—that you’ve seen me use on Jack—are a fraction of what I can actually do—a fraction of what the human can do? A fraction of what that beast you saw in Red’s vision can do? You  _need_  to set your sights higher! I promise you that I can defeat the human, but you need a strategy that aims at clearing a path from me to him!

“It’s going to take resources and time, but time is something that you frankly don’t have to be wasting on infighting and petty squabbles. Your first step is realising that your small, petty problems are going to weigh you down in this fight. See what happened when you raided the city and allowed yourselves to be clouded by anger and resentment?” he said as he looked at Elhsand. “It was a disaster that nearly got you all killed.”

Silver sighed before going on. “I frankly don’t care about whatever issues you have with one another, but this is a war for the very heart of this planet. Do not fail.” He turned to Honey, clearly aggravated. “I think I’m done here. I think you can take care of this, now,” he gestured to the crowd.

In a pop, he was gone, leaving a rather stunned assembly to murmur to themselves.

“So,” said Jack, taking control of the room after a moment, “is there any other business?”

The room gradually quieted as the mammals looked from one to another.

After a general consensus seemed to indicate no, Jack continued, “Then I think it’s safe to say that we’re all dismissed. My team, I need you to stay to discuss plans with Honey and me. Anyone else who wants to join in is free to do so,” he said pointedly as he looked in the direction of the guard.

As Nick, Judy, and other civilians shuffled out, Judy was somewhat relieved to notice that the guard members were staying.

She also noticed Wilde as he drew a very weary-looking Honey aside.

-.-.-.-

“So . . .” started Wilde slowly as he carefully regarded a rather tense looking Honey, “my son has brought it to my attention that I’ve been a bit of a shithead.”

Honey cocked her eyebrow but said nothing.

“Okay, more than just a bit of a shithead,” sighed Wilde, “But . . . my emotions were running high and-”

“And getting over your prejudice against Judy is going to be hard. A hard, long journey,” said Honey, trying to fill in the gaps.

He nodded slightly in response. “I . . . I suppose so,” he said slowly.

“You still don’t fully trust me, though. Or her,” said Honey. It was a statement of fact. She could see it written all over his face.

“I . . . no, I . . . I don’t.”

“Then why are you here, Nick?” she sighed. “Why are you here when you clearly don’t want to be?”

“Because,” growled Wilde, trying to force himself along, “because . . . I may have overreacted.”

“Might have? You implied I was a traitor.”

Wilde sighed. “Look, this is hard enough for me already.”

“Good,” said Honey. “I’m not trying to throw it back in your face or anything, but you said some things that are pretty hard to take back. This is the second time today that I’ve been accused of treachery—that I know of. It wouldn’t have bugged me so much except that you were my friend.”

“I know we were,” said Wilde, not sure what to say, unable to deny that they  _were_  friends. “But . . . calling you a traitor wasn’t right. I know you would never do anything to intentionally betray our cause.”

“But you question my judgement?”

‘ _Deeply!’_  thought Wilde, though kept himself from speaking. No need to make a bad situation worse.

She could read it on his face, though.

Sighing softly, she decided to avoid the bait and simply said, “So, you’re apologising for some of the things you said but not all of them? Also, you want to try and get along so we can work together?”

“That’s . . . about right,” said Wilde nodding awkwardly.

“And in the meantime, we just let the unresolved feelings of anger and resentment just stew?”

“Well,” he started, feeling a sinking pit in his stomach as he voiced his next thoughts, “there’s no point talking about since I’m not going to change my mind. If you bring it up, we’re just gonna have a fight,” he started off knowing that his next words very well  _could_  land him in a fight, but what the hell? He needed her to know exactly where she stood with him lest it lead to disappointment later. “What good would it do either of us,” he started “for me to say the words, ‘I don’t trust you, I don’t believe you,’ over and over again? I don’t like you anymore,” he said, “I think your tactics are horrendous. I think you’re morally bankrupt in many ways. More than I care to list.” It was an emotional outburst he couldn’t help. “I think you’re self-serving at best and a war criminal at worst.” Wilde stopped himself. “That last one . . . was going too far,” he added sheepishly. “I don’t think you’re a war criminal. I know that  _technically_  Sergeant Hopps isn’t either, but . . . I  _feel_  like she is. And you were working with her. I just . . . .”

“That’s enough, Wilde,” said Honey tiredly and somewhat sadly. She was emotionally drained. “We can work together as long as you don’t try to undermine me again.”

Wilde swallowed, internally unsure whether he could keep that promise, but found himself nodding.

“Are you sure?” she asked. “I’m a morally bankrupt mammal. Sure you wanna work with me?”

Wilde sucked in his breath but remembered his son’s pleading. “Yes,” he found himself saying.

Honey nodded carefully, seriously. “Alright,” she said as she turned to where Jack and several squads of Guards and soldiers stood talking. “Go see Hopps for instructions on what you can get started on,” she said.

Wilde looked taken aback.

“You work with me means you work with her,” said Honey, glancing at him out of the corner of her eye. “She knows everything I know and knows what we’re working on at the moment. You have the clearance already as one of the leaders of the Guard—she should give you no trouble.”

When he didn’t move, she spun to face him.

“You want to work with me,” she started in an angry, hushed whisper, “means you have to work with all of us!” she finished sharply. “I don’t have the time or the patience to have another whole fucking argument about whether it’s appropriate to work with Hopps, or with me or discuss what a terrible mammal I am so I’m just going to give you two options: You can either work with me and try to get along with  _everybody_  here or you can  _not_  do that. Let me know what you decide. In the meantime, I have to take care of  _my_  responsibilities like a fucking adult.”

With that she turned to the meeting, heading toward a conference table the large crowd was gathered around.

“Sorry I’m late boys, and ladies,” she said pleasantly, smiling at the gathering. “I was just finishing something up,” she said as she glanced back at Wilde. She looked away, her voice getting lost amid the others.

Wilde only watched as he could hear Jack speaking, unable to make out what the bunny was saying. After a moment, Wilde shook his head, his emotions churning, as he turned and walked out of the room.

-.-.-.-

“Alright,” said Hopps as she scanned through the material on the laptop screen, “There’s not much here of immediate use to  _our_  wing, but it needs to go to COR Command,” she said as she turned to the leopard standing beside her.

She turned her body back to her desk but continued looking up at the feline.

“Who at COR Command should get it?” he asked.

She stopped for a moment and hummed to herself. At last she looked back at him. “I think Dixon’s got the least heavy case load. Send it to him,” she said.

The feline nodded and turned away, leaving the bunny and the quiet study behind.

As he walked down the hall toward another room, he took note of Wilde coming down the hall in the opposite direction.

“Hey,” said Wilde as he came down, “I know you, don’t I? You’re one of Jack’s guys, right?”

“Uh . . . yeah,” said the leopard, a slight edge to his voice.

“Oren, right?” asked Wilde.

The feline nodded.

“So . . . you’re working with Hopps, right?” said Wilde tentatively.

“Yeah,” said Oren. “We are.”

“Yeah, I just came from there. You needed to talk to her?”

Wilde noticed the leopard had taken a slightly protective stance.

“Not just yet,” started Wilde, “I just . . . can I ask you something?”

“Yeah,” replied Oren. “Shoot.”

“Well . . . you and your team . . . you’re all working with-slash-for Hopps, right?”

A glazed over look came over the big cat and his mien looked somewhat defensive.

“Yeah,” replied Oren, somewhat harshly.

“Can I ask you why?” asked Wilde, the genuine bemusement shining through clearly. “How can you stand to be around her? As a pred, I mean.”

The leopard scoffed. “Who the hell are you be asking me anything about her or how I or anyone else gets along with her? I don’t know you from Adam.”

“Wow, first of all: Rude!” growled Wilde.

“So, I’m being rude to the guy who tried to undermine Honey’s mission? It’s all over the Guard what you and Groe tried to do to Serg!”

“Oh, I get it, so you see yourselves as better than us?” asked Wilde.

“It’s not just perception—we  _know_  it.”

“Well maybe if you’d lived in the city under Hopps’ rule, you’d understand  _our_  position,” returned Wilde.

“And maybe if you’d been on  _our_  side of working with Hopps, you’d get how badly you fucked up. We all heard what was going on in the conference room. I had to go back to work on stuff for this organisation that we  _all_  agreed we wanted to be a part of, but I was this close to giving your friends a piece of my mind back there.”

“Oh, please,” said Wilde in a hushed whisper, “you can’t know the shit she put us through!”

“I know exactly what she put you through, dumbass. We were there on the receiving end too, some of us! But we also saw first paw what it was that she was doing for  _us._  Or did you forget that we were Honey’s contact when it came to smuggling mammals out? Nobody was supposed to know that Hopps was her contact on the inside, but it wasn’t that hard for the rest of us to follow the clues and figure it out. We all put the pieces together about four months in—the biggest clue was the fact that Jack was her fucking lawyer. Of  _course_  we knew—it was an open secret.”

Wilde’s mouth drooped open slightly. “You all  _knew?_ ” he asked sharply.

“Pretty much. Bunny’s results were fantastic. We got a ton of information form ‘Honey’s contact, Carrots,’ and we all knew who that was. You have no idea how many times she saved your asses or ours. But you don’t give a fuck about that.”

“You didn’t have to live with her! How dar-”

“No! How dare you!” replied the leopard. “You’re not gonna be able to convince me that Hopps is bad—it’s just not gonna happen. Yeah, she had to do some shitty, terrible things while she was undercover—pretending to be bad—but she’s not the evil in the city. She didn’t start this war. Hell, she didn’t even wanna be a part of it.”

Wilde let out a heavy sigh. “So . . . you’re saying what? That you work for her in spite of the years she set back prey-pred relationships because she saved a couple of mammals?”

“Hundreds,” said the leopard. “Hundreds. Not counting the valuable information she gave us.”

Wilde ran a paw through the fur on his head.

“You wanna read about it?” asked the leopard, “Feel free. I guess you decided to play ball for our team since you’re down here. You probably still have your clearance.”

Wilde nodded. “I do. But I don’t wanna read about what a great mammal she is.”

“Right,” said the leopard, “that tracks with what I figured,” he said as he sidestepped Wilde.

He turned quickly to catch the leopard. “What the hell is that supposed to mean?”

“It means,” said Oren, shifting the weight of the laptop in his paws, “that you don’t wanna read or hear anything that challenges what you think,” he said. “What you wanna do is read more things that confirm what you already think you know about Hopps: that she’s evil and manipulative. Well, she isn’t either of those things. But you don’t wanna hear it.”

“I’m open to the possibility,” said Wilde, “but nothing I’ve heard-”

“Heard like what? Her saving lives?”

“But it doesn’t-”

“It doesn’t what?” said Oren, now growing seriously uncomfortable with the laptop. “It doesn’t fit in to what you know about her?”

“No! It’s that it doesn’t . . . outweigh . . . .”

“What you already think you know,” finished the leopard.

Wilde sighed.

Oren eyed him. “Do you  _want_  to have a different opinion of Hopps?”

“No!” shouted Wilde emphatically. He caught himself and stopped. “I mean, no . . . I . . . I don’t know.”

“I think your first answer was right. You  _don’t_  want to change your opinion of her. You don’t  _want_  to forgive her for the things she had to do  _in the line of duty_. You just want to be able to hate her and take her down while enjoying the benefits of what she got done in Zootopia and in Happy Town,” said the feline as he turned back to the room toward which he’d been headed. “Why don’t you take a moment,” he said over his shoulder, “to count how many times you got an early warning that your place was gonna be raided and then realise that the reason you got that warning was because of Sergeant Judy Hopps.”

With that, the feline disappeared through the door, leaving Wilde quite alone as he turned back to where he’d heard Hopps earlier.

His breath caught when he saw her, standing in the doorway down the hall.

Her ears were flattened against her head as she eyed him wearily.

“You wanna help out?” she asked shyly.

He said nothing for a moment as he stared at her, wondering to himself how much of the conversation she’d heard.

“Yeah,” he responded gruffly, taking a step toward her.

She took a step back into the room.

“Well, there’s plenty of work to do, so come on in and I’ll find you something. Honey texted me that . . . you were gonna try . . . .”

She let her sentence hang in their air, unfinished.

He nodded, and padded down the hall toward her.

“Yeah,” he whispered hesitantly, “I can try . . . .”

-.-.-.-

Some time later, in an obscure corner of the library, Jack sat alone, reading though emails he’d missed while incapacitated.

His ears twitched as he heard the creaking of footsteps behind him.

“You’re terrible at sneaking, you know that, don’t you?” he asked as he took a sip of tea.

“I wasn’t trying to sneak up on you,” she said as she came round to one of the soft couches. She sat on it and reclined.

“I think the meeting went well.”

“It would have gone better if Silver had stayed. He had some really important information he needed to impart. Besides what he told us while he was there.”

Jack let out a sigh. “I don’t think I have to tell you that my feelings toward him are between fear, hatred, awe, and gratefulness.”

Honey nodded. “Same here. Sucks that he almost killed you.”

Jack belted out a laugh at the understatement before falling again into silence.

“We need a better plan,” she said. “And we’re gonna need Silver’s help.”

“He see us as too divided at the moment,” said Jack with a grunt as he stretched out. He leant forward again to pick up his cup.

“I do too,” she sighed. “I have no idea how I’m supposed to herd these mammals,” she said.

“You should have opted for soldiers under your direct command, like me,” he said.

“I did. Well, a little.”

“Sure, I know you have your main guys, but then you have the Guard making up the bulk. To me, it didn’t seem like the best idea.”

“I know, you told me.”

“I didn’t say it to gloat,” he added.

“No, I know,” she said, sighing. “I just thought that it would be better for the Guard if instead of taking control of their organisation myself to share the power with Koslov and Mr. Big. I already  _knew_  that the Gurd respected  _them_. Besides, COR originated with loosely connected power to begin with. It still has that loose connection feel to it.”

“I know, but there’s a difference,” he said as he took another sip. “What you did was you maintained that loose connection at the expense of keeping yourself distant. They looked at you like a god, almost. They didn’t know how your operation worked, but they knew they were a part of it.”

“Well, there was no way I could tell them about Hopps!”

“I wasn’t talking about Hopps, but I agree with you. That was something that would have ended up slipping out if you’d revealed it to them. The Guard had a few spies in it.”

“I know. That has to be how they knew when to start the attack on Wilde Times.”

Jack nodded.

“Everyone here is vetted, though,” she said, wondering if his concern lay there.

He simply nodded again.

She squirmed in her seat, looking slightly uncomfortable.

Jack set down his coffee cup. “That’s not why you sought me out though, is it?”

She shook her head.

“What is it?” he asked, though he had a pretty good idea what.

“Well, I dunno, I just saw you up and about today and . . . and I wondered if it was a good idea for you to be up and about so soon?”

Jack sighed as she leant forward.

“What happened to you when he touched you?” she asked.

He let out a sigh and let is head fall forward. He stared at the ground for a moment before sighing and leaning back.

The shadows in the library half-way hid his face as he took a deep breath.

“The simplest way to put it,” he started slowly, “is that . . . I uncovered a bad memory.”

Honey said nothing but only nodded as she continued to look at him.

“We . . . basically went on a tour of my mind. It was like I was walking down a literal memory lane, but everything there was grey and foggy, like walking through a bog or a grey dessert with an overcast sky.”

“You went to another universe?” she asked as she leant forward.

He shook his head. “No, not another universe. Just inside my head. That’s just . . . how my brain interprets what I experienced. Or that’s what Silver told me. It was just grey. It felt like everything was grey and barren.”

“But how did Silver figure out you were telling the truth? How did you end up with the mark?”

“He looked through my memories with me. I guess he was keeping his mental distance from me because I didn’t even know he was there until later. I . . . came across a memory I didn’t know I had. One from when I was a child. When . . . . my parents were alive . . . .”

Honey said nothing and looked at him, the look on his face expressing rage, agitation, and sorrow all at once.

Seeing he was becoming upset, Honey leapt to her feet.

“Listen,” she started quickly, “you don’t have to te-”

“The Human killed my parents.”

Honey sucked in a deep breath. There was a furious glint in his eyes she’d never seen before.

After a period of tense silence, he let out a shuddering breath as he spoke. “He ate them.”

Honey let out a puff of a breath and found herself numbly sitting back down. “You . . . you saw-”

“No! No. No,” said Jack, eyeing her sharply, but there was still tat menacing glare. “My memory ended at his killing my mother and dragging my father away, screaming about not wanting her . . . her . . .” he started to waver in his composure. “. . . Her . . . remains . . . on the floor.”

He gulped as sorrow seized his throat.

“Oh, God, Jack,” she said as she leant forward and put a paw on his knee, “I can’t imagine . . . .”

After a moment he continued while clearing his throat. “So, it turns out the memory was a trap. That memory  _was_  the focal point of the mark in many ways. The Human himself started speaking to me through it. Decided that he was gonna turn me into a mindless body, erase my mind—that kind of thing, I guess. But before he did that, he decided to torture me. He wanted me to see what he had done to my . . . to my father . . . .”

“Take your time!” she said quietly. “Don’t go on if it’s to painful!”

“I need to tell you, Honey, so that you know,” he said sharply.

She opened her mouth to speak but closed it and nodded gently for him to continue.

“He showed me images of my father hanging, alive, from a hook by his legs. He made me watch as he skinned my father with his bare hands. He made me watch my father weep and cry and beg for his life as he was being torn apart by that fucking cunt!”

Jack suddenly stood, knocking the table and spilling some of the contents of his cup.

Honey jumped slightly in surprise and watched him pace frantically back and forth.

“I can’t stop seeing it, Honey! I can’t stop!” he said, anger coiling through his voice.

“Jack, you shouldn’t have been at the meeting!” she said quietly though insistently as she rose. “You’re not in the mental pla-”

“I know!” he shouted back.

The furious look in his eyes took Honey aback, almost as though he were about to attack her.

Seeing her reaction his look immediately softened and he looked down and to the side.

“I’m sorry, Honey,” he said. After a moment, he looked back up at her. “I’m sorry, it’s just . . . it’s what he did to my father and to my mother that makes it so that I  _have_  to be there. I have to do  _something_  to kill that monster, even if all I’m doing is helping Silver do it!”

Honey took a deep breath and looked down in thought.

“Anyway . . . Silver managed to break up the trap. He couldn’t take away the mark, though,” he said as he laughed slightly.

“Why?” she asked.

Jack sighed. “Because . . . in order to remove it, I have to be psychologically healthy. The memories in which I got the Human’s mark still have to be assimilated into my psyche along with all of the traumatic things I saw from the Human’s first person view,” he said, his voice returning to a relatively calm, matter-of-fact tone of voice. “Those . . . psychic wounds need to heal before I can even begin to have the Human’s mark removed.”

Honey nodded. “We’ll get ‘im!” said Honey in a soft yet fervent tone. “I swear it to you, I will do everything in my power to get justice for you and your parents.”

He nodded slightly.

“What we need to do now” she said, “is figure out how we’re going to defend ourselves. Too many things are in flux. I know this place is gonna be hit soon. I don’t know when, but if Silver is right about those monsters the Human is creating, we’re gonna need some kind of defence, fast.”

“I have my guards on it,” said Jack easily, a neutral, almost uncaring look on his face.

“How?” she returned.

“I asked Silver to help me train my wing of the guard. And yours, and he agreed. I told him I needed to talk it over with you first to get you’re approval,” he said as he turned to look at her. “I prefer to move together on these matters jointly.”

Honey nodded slightly. “It sounds good to me. We’re gonna need all the help we can get. If something were to hit us within the next two weeks, we’d be in a shit load of trouble.”

Jack nodded. “I’ve told my guys to be on the lookout. I need three groups of twelve to be always ready to move.”

She nodded slightly as Jack sat down again, the tension from earlier dissipating. She sat down across from him and leant back, slightly.

“I can’t wait for the orders to clear me of wrong doing—me  _and_  my guys. Not counting the Guard, of course,” she spat.

“When do you have to go down for the hearing?”

“You too,” she said.

He looked bemused. “Me?” he said, his voice laced with grave confusion. “But I . . . .”

He trailed. She took a deep breath. “I know,” she said. “You didn’t have a hand in anything, but Silver planted the seed of doubt and now they have to follow it through where you’re concerned.”

“I told them that Silver cleared me.”

“I know,” she returned. “But the accusation having been made has set in motion . . . certain inevitable processes. Besides, if Silver’s nice enough to come with us, he might help us shake a few things up at COR.”

Jack nodded slightly. “A word from him’d go a long way toward clearing us.”

She nodded. “Hopps is really my only concern.”

Jack nodded again. “I agree. If worse comes to worse, are you gonna back her?”

“With everything I have,” she replied adamantly. “She’s done too much for COR for them to just cast her off.”

Jack said nothing for a moment.

“God, we really need a vacation from this place,” said Honey as she laughed slightly.

“No rest for the weary,” he said.

She eyed him slyly. “You might end up with a mini-vacation, though—Skye’ll be here tomorrow.”

Jack laughed. “Just what are you implying?”

“Oh, come on,” she said. “Skye already told me that it’d been a while since she’d ‘seen’ you and couldn’t wait to spend some time with you again. She’s already asked me, almost casually, what room you’re staying in, where to find you—that sort of thing.”

“We’re just friends,” he sighed.

“Cut the shit. I know the two of you are together.”

“As together as two professionals can be.”

“I suppose so—together enough for her to ask me if the walls were sound proof to which I replied that she would want to close the vents between rooms since nobody here is interested in hearing your sex noises.”

Jack sucked in a deep breath, unable to hide the smile. “I, uh . . . suppose I could use the kind of vacation she has to offer.”

She smirked slightly and leant forward, and Jack watched as Honey rose from her seat and stretched.

“It’s six thirty-eight,” she said as she checked her watch, yawning slightly. “Gotta go check in on Hopps, see if Wilde’s being a good little tod.”

“You’d think at his age he’d’ve matured from a tod to a reynard. You know, it’s all over my team what he said to you and Hopps even here in this library.”

Honey huffed out a sigh. “He’s . . . dealing with a lot and I’m trying to make an allowance for that. He’s a good fox. But, like all of us, sometimes he just isn’t very nice.”

Jack nodded as she stepped around the chairs and left.

He was still sitting in the same position, trying not to think, as he heard the door of the library open and close.

-.-.-.-

Next morning, out in one of the fallow fields, a large mixed group of Guards and Jack’s soldiers stood chattering in low voices. All together they were a muster of nearly two hundred.

Among them stood Nick and Judy. Down another row, Sergeant Hopps stood, ignoring those around her who seemed to be doing much the same to her. She noticed Dr. Wilde out of the corner of her eye as he came across the field, a pair of sunglasses on his eyes to shield his vision from the bright white of the autumn morning. She nodded slightly and looked away, just missing him as he nodded back, slightly.

Silver stood ahead of them, shirtless and waiting for the two leaders to show up, pacing as he did so, slowly walking back and forth.

The chatter quieted slightly when they saw Honey along with Jack come around from the front of the house and across the field.

Silver perked a bit when he saw them and came to a stop, allowing his feet to rustle the grass beneath them.

It took a few moments for the two mammals to reach the front of the group, the quiet pouring over the group quickly as they both faced the mammals ahead of them.

“Attention!” shouted Honey, watching as the soldiers and guards took a rictus stance. “Jack, they’re all yours,” she smiled as she turned to him.

The bunny came forward and cleared his throat before standing straight.

“So!” started Jack as he looked around the group, “If you’re smart, you did yourselves a favour and got good a goodnight’s sleep last night. If you’re new at this and don’t know how to manage your time and  _didn’t_  get a goodnight’s sleep, this early morning till three o’clock is going to be a living nightmare.”

The crowd rumbles slightly. He looked around sternly.

“Honey and I,” he continued, “as you well know from last night’s announcement at dinner, asked whether Silver would be kind enough to put the both of us along with all of you—save those who are currently researching for us in the library—through a training regimen. This, Silver has assured me, is meant to be an introductory lesson in what to expect from those working with the Human: They have super speed and agility and their senses are heightened far beyond ours. Some of them even have the ability to teleport from miles around. We are facing an unconventional enemy that has powers and abilities beyond which any mortal is capable of dealing. If we want to survive, if we are to last at all,” he said as he looked around at them, “we need to band together and use a more advanced means of training. I expect  _all_  of you to show Silver the discipline you’ve shown thus far save those of you who know who you are: Better is expected from you. And with that, I turn you over to our new trainer.”

Quietly, both Jack and Honey moved from a position in front of the group to somewhere in the midst of it.

Silver took a step forward and looked about the group.

“Yesterday, I came in to a group that was disjointed, disorganised, with no clear, cohesive voice coming through: No clear thread. Everybody had his own ideas of what should be done. What you are dealing with,” said Silver, “as your commander, Jack, said, is something the likes of which you have never seen before on this planet. I’m warning you right now! The techniques and the instruction in which I will be leading you will be  _totally_  ineffective against someone like me, the human, and his cohort, save for a select few, of course that will inevitably make up the bulk of his army. These techniques will also be effective against that creature you saw in Red’s vision,” he said as he gestured to Nick. “There are soldiers whom the human has enhanced, however, who, with the right techniques, and with enough skill and practice,  _can_  be taken down by mortals who have nothing more than the training I will impart.”

He scanned the crowd.

“Elhsand!” called Silver. “Come here.”

Everyone turned to look at the fox.

Elhsand made his way forward after a moment of hesitation.

As he reached the silver fox, he saw Silver materialise a long bamboo training cane in his paw.

“Just stand right here, right in front of me,” said Silver as he pointed with the cane.

The red fox hit his mark and stood as straight as he could.

“How do you feel about being my practice dummy for the day?”

The fox’s head shook slightly but otherwise made no movement.

Everyone was silent.

“As I’m training you,” said Silver to the group, “I first need you to know that I won’t harm any of you . . . irreparably. Keep in mind that Jack was paralysed from the chest down about and I was  _still_  able to heal him. Now,” he said as he turned back to Elhsand, “the first thing I’m going to show you isn’t a magic trick. Elhsand, take your fighting stance.”

Silver scrutinised Elhsand as he did so. Silver sighed and tapped the areas where the fox needed to correct his stance. He walked around the fox to ensure that everything was proper before coming back around to the front.

“Good. Or at least, it’ll do for now,” he said. “First things first,  _never_  attack someone of my power level directly. Or at all, really. Save them for me.” He turned to Elhsand. “Okay, give me your best.”

Elhsand ran forward and threw a punch which Silver deflected easily.

“Now,” said Silver as he easily twisted Elhsand’s arm behind him in a painful move, “this is an example of how you would disarm someone under normal circumstances; that is,  _if_  they were mortal. If I were the human, or anyone of his minions with the ability to do simple teleportation, I might have done something like this:”

Instantly, Elhsand collapsed in on himself to the astonishment of those around him, disappearing into nothingness from the inside out.

The fox instantly found himself screaming as, in the blink of an eye, he popped back into existence some seven hundred feet above the house in the distance.

“Holy fuck!” cried one of the crowd members.

The flailing fox screamed, wind blowing about his fur as he cried out.

“Jesus Christ!” shouted Groe as several others let out shouts of surprise and fear realisation slammed home.

Before anyone had a chance to move, and before Elhsand got anywhere near to crashing through the roof of the house, Silver ran toward the house, crossing the distance so quickly he might as well have teleported, and leapt in the air, snatching Elhsand mid-fall, and landing somewhere on the other side of the house.

Moments later, as the crowd stood forward, watching in broken formation, Silver and Elhsand came around, the red fox looking quite pale around his ears.

“Back to formation!” called Jack, and quickly they had all taken their places in their rows and columns.

At last, Silver and Elhsand came to stand in front of them.

There was a brief silence as the silver fox looked around at them all.

“ _Never,_ ” emphasised Silver “attack some with my power level directly. For one thing, you don’t know what the agent’s powers might be and, which is more, there’s no way you have to defend against those powers. They often defy the laws of physics of this universe, and they will not hesitate to exploit your weakness to their advantage. I’m not here to show off or to demonstrate everything it is that I’m capable of. What I’m here to do is to give some sense of what it’d be like to fight some of the super soldiers you’re going to be going up against in time and then put you through katas designed to fend off and even defeat such enhanced soldiers. Jack here is the only one who managed to fend me off when I was at what I’d call my level-two. Jack is exceptional and most of you won’t be able to take it. That he fended it off at all was something. We’re going to be practicing at what I would call my level one. Even at this level, there is a potential for harm. For scrapes and bruises, we have Dr. Wilde here who’s been gracious enough to get his head out of his ass and help us. For bigger injuries, should I become careless and cause you graver injury, I myself will heal you.”

He took up the bamboo cane and walked around while gesturing for Elhsand to resume his place in the formation.

“Jack,” said Silver, “would you mind taking Elhsand’s place? I have a feeling he’s not going to be much good to me.”

Jack nodded slightly and came forward.

Some distance away, sitting on the roof of the large Hopps residence, sat Mike.

He was wearing a red sleeveless shirt in spite of the wickedly cold air.

He watched as Jack took up the bamboo staff and heard Silver issue what was likely a challenge.

It was fascinating to watch. And also somewhat terrifying. He’d had hints of the magical fox’s powers but had seen them be used with startling efficacy when he saw Elhsand teleported over the roof of the house—a few feet from him, really—and then watched as the silver fox saved his own student. He had no idea why the older fox was picking on Elhsand. The red fox had seemed like a genuinely nice reynard when he’d first met him, but that was a particularly brutal move to pull on someone who clearly wasn’t expecting it.

If there’s one thing Mike was sure of it was that the stunt had been pulled on the fox to send a message, but what that might be, he wasn’t sure.

He’d heard from his dad that there’d been some kind of kerfuffle at the meeting at which he along with everyone else from the guard had been present. Something terrible that his dad’s double had seen in some kind of vision.

His father had refused to tell him what the vision had consisted of.

He heard the clacking of bamboos sticks as Jack and Silver went toe to toe, using the sticks effectively as longbows. Mike watched as they each got a few good hits in before the silver fox stopped the lesson. He used to cane to point out the flaws at Jack’s stance before going at it again.

After watching the same cycle of bout plus correction a few times, the managed to make it through a few bouts without having to stop for a single correction.

Mike watched and marvelled as the fox materialised more bamboo rods and directed the crowd to take one a piece.

He watched as they all took their stances, pairing up with each other, and watched as Jack and Honey teamed up.

Jack and some of the other males removed their shirts and doused themselves with water.

The tod bit his lower lip as he watched the females take off some of their heavier clothes, meant for the cold weather, as they began to practice.

He couldn’t help but feel himself warm slightly as their breathable gym clothes were just see-through enough for him to see the silhouette of something.

He took a deep breath as he looked around at the vixens in the group. Casually, he let his eyes drift over to Honey before shaking his head and looking around at some of the other females. Honey was like an über mother and sexualising her in any way was anathema in his book.

Some of the rabbit does of a particularly curvy shape had him closing his eyes and crossing his legs in slight frustration.

He spat and looked off to the side.

“What’re you doing?” came the surprising voice behind him.

He nearly jumped out of his skin and grabbed onto the roof as he stood up as quickly as he could and turned to face the newcomer.

Fay had been standing just behind him, having just come up to the roof to watch the practice.

“Oh!” stammered Mike, “I . . . I was just, uh . . . .”

“Watching the practice?” she asked when he said nothing for a moment after he trailed off.

He nodded. “Yeah. Yeah! I was just watching the practice.”

She eyed him slyly for a moment. “Why are you nervous?” she asked.

“Uh . . . I’m not nervous,” he replied. “I’m just watching the practice.”

“Um . . . okay,” she replied. “Mind if I watch with you?” she asked. It was really the reason she’d come up here, after all.

Before he could answer she sidestepped him and sat down on a spot next to where he’d been sitting.

He watched her for a moment, nervously watching her reaction to see if she’d be able to figure out  _why_  he had seemed nervous.

To his relief, he noticed her gaze drift to Jack and some of the other shirtless bucks in Jack’s group. Then watched as her gaze drifted to some of the males of another species, her gaze pointedly landing on Silver.

She seemed to be absorbed in her own peeping, though admittedly, a shirtless male was a  _lot_  less risqué than a shirtless female.

‘She’s pretty cute,’ he thought to himself as he observed Fay, and found himself sitting next to her.

“So uh . . .” he started, “you . . . uh . . . you live here?”

‘ _Smooth._ ** _Real_** _smooth,’_  he chided.

“Yeah,” she said as she watched the matches.

Jack landed with an ‘oomph’ as Honey landed a particularly hard blow, sweeping his legs from under him.

“Jack’s a good teacher,” she remarked. He had put Honey through her katas and she had gotten the hang of it quickly.

“That,” said Mike, “and Honey’s a fast learner.”

“She seems really motivated,” said Fay, almost to herself.

Mike found himself nodding in agreement.

“She is,” he said. “I’ve seen practices like this before with the Guard back in Happy Town.”

“Oh yeah?” said Fay as she eyed him.

Mike nodded. “Yeah. Honey was always a good teacher and a good learner whenever she brought in special trainers. She learned whatever it was that was being taught quick so that there’d be two teachers helping out. It gets the practice done faster so you can move on to the next lesson.”

She nodded as she watched them.

“And . . . the girls . . .” she trailed off.

Mike bit his lower lip nervously.

“Do they  _always_  wear something see through?” she asked, her nose slightly crinkled.

She turned to see him looking away from her, but the inside of his ears were blushing red, and she had her answer.

“So . . . do you always like to peep in on practices?” she asked with bubbling laughter to her voice.

“Uh . . . well . . .” he trailed as he looked across the field, “I guess you could say it’s one of the perks of the being the owner’s son,” he said.

Fay chuckled slightly and turned back to view the large group.

Honey, Jack, and Silver were carefully observing everyone.

Mike could see now why, as Jack had indicated, the practice was going to take so long.

Stances needed to be corrected again and again until the moves were flawless. Each of the teachers were taking a third of the students, and even joining in with a bout to demonstrate the correct form again.

This was repeated again and again until each student had mastered the technique.

“So . . . you live here?” asked Mike again.

Fay nodded.

“How’re you related to the Hopps?”

“I’m Judy’s sister. So, you know, my parents own the place,” she said, gesturing to the acres and acres of land around them.

Mike felt himself internally stiffen. He eyed her carefully as she sat next to him. She was looking straight ahead, so innocently at the practice.

She hissed through her teeth when one of the raccoons under Arborel’s command took a particularly bad blow.

They watched carefully as Wilde went out quickly as practice was stopped momentarily for him to treat the mammal.

“Is that your dad?” she asked as she motioned to Wilde.

Mike nodded.

Not being able to hear his nod, she turned and looked at him. “Is he?” she asked.

Mike nodded slightly and eyed her wearily.

She turned back to face the front. “It’s gotta be pretty cool to have your dad be a doctor. I have a few doctors in my family.”

“How many?” asked Mike.

“About a hundred and twenty-three.”

Mike barked out a laugh before realising she was serious.

“That’s, uh . . . that’s a lot . . . .” He wasn’t quite sure how to finish the sentence.

“What can I say?” she asked as she glanced at Mike, “We bunnies love our husbands,” she said as she giggled slightly.

“Well, I like eating carrots,” said Mike, “but I take ‘em out of my mouth every once in a while.”

She glanced at him and gave him a slight nudge.

Even as careful as she was of him, noticing his bandage, he still winced.

“Sorry!” she said quickly. “I didn’t mean t-”

“It’s fine,” he said as he rubbed his arm. “It just still hurts really bad if you touch it.”

She nodded.

“So, yeah,” started Mike as he went onto another topic, “my dad’s Nick Wilde.”

Fay nodded. “He’s really smart,” she said as she turned back to watch them all getting back to practice. “He really saved a lot of the mice when they first got here. I had to take a day off school to help out. There was just so much to do.”

“Are the mice still here?”

She nodded. “A lot of them have been really badly hurt, but I think Silver’s doing something to help them. We haven’t had a single mouse die, and I think it’s because of him. You know he can heal mammals, right?”

Mike shook his head no.

“Yeah, he can,” she said as she looked back at Silver. “He healed Carrots and Red when they got back from Zootopia. All off their injuries in a flash. I think he’s been doing something like that with the mice. Like . . . feeding them a stream of his power or something. Some of the ones who were close to dying started getting better after just being . . . sustained for a while. Like, he healed them all bit by bit. I guess doing it all at once could hurt him or something.”

Mike nodded. “Yeah, maybe,” he said.

They both fell into silence for a moment as they watched the practice continue.

“So, what’s it like being Judy Hopps’ sister?” he asked.

He winced slightly as he looked over at her, wondering if he’d asked the wrong question at the wrong time.

To his relief, she shrugged her shoulders. “Like being the sister of any other mammal I guess,” she said.

“Yeah, but . . . she’s famous.”

Fay shrugged again. “In a family numbering in the hundreds, living in a place where everybody else’s family members number in the hundreds, there are gonna be famous relatives hiding in  _every_  corner,” she said with a hint of laughter in her voice.

“Well, yeah, but I mean, your sister’s  _in_ famous,” he replied.

 _That_  got her attention and she turned to look at him. “Not here.”

“Oh, so what? You just ignored the fact that your sister was anti-pred?”

“I don’t think she was ever anti-pred. We weren’t aware of the specifics of her job—I mean, the rest of the family and me. We saw her on the news a few times coming out in favour of anti-pred legislation—and  _that_  seemed weird to me because most of the rest of the time, she never commented on it. Not even when some relatives’d try to make her say something anti-pred. She was just . . . quiet about the whole thing. And then it came out at the town hall about her being undercover.”

“You believe she was undercover?” scoffed Mike.

“Yeah,” she replied patiently, “I do.”

“I’m not sure  _I_  do.”

“Yes, you do. Or some part of you does,” she said as she looked at him. “If you  _really_  thought that my sister was evil, you wouldn’t be here.”

“I’m here because my dad told me we’d be safe,” returned he.

She smiled slightly. “And you are.”

He decided to drop it. She was partially right: He did feel safe here and  _did_  have  _some_  sense that her sister wasn’t wicked. But still . . . .

Mike sucked in a deep breath and looked at the crowd. His eyes found Hopps. He watched as she went through the kata with one of the students, patiently correcting the student’s stance before going through it again.

Mike’s heart nearly stopped when he caught a good look at her figure when the sun shone through her shirt in  _just_  the right way.

He closed his eyes, not having meant to see that.

“Well,” said Fay as she rose, smoothing out her skirt as she stood, “it’s been a pleasure. What’s your name?” she asked.

“Mike,” he said as he stood.

She reached out a paw and he took it, shaking it slightly.

“Faynella,” she said, “but everyone calls me Fay.”

He nodded. “Fay,” he said and nodded in return.

He watched as she turned from him and went back over to the airtight hatch in the roof.

He wondered idly as she watched her receding form whether she’d have her sister’s figure when she got older.

It took him a moment to realise the tiny bunny was checking him out in return.

They each smiled at each other as she reached down to the handle.

She opened the hatch with little noise and closed it again behind her with a slight shuffing sound.

He stood staring at the spot where she’d disappeared.

He sat back down to watch the practice, and was slightly startled some time later when he heard the hatch open.

Fay took a seat next to him as she smoothed out her blue skirt that ruffled a little in the slight wind.

She’d brought a tray of toast and dry cereals along with a pitcher of lemonade.

“I got down stairs and they were all eating breakfast. The first wave, anyway, and I realised that you hadn’t had any. Want some?” she asked.

He nodded gratefully and found himself smiling as he took a piece of buttered toast and munched it as he watched the bouts taking place in the fields below.

He turned and poured them each a glass of lemonade.

‘ _Smooth, Wilde,’_  he thought to himself as she took a glass and smiled at him.  _’Real smooth.’_

-.-.-.-

“My queen and my elder,” knelt the feline.

He looked up to regard the mirror, beholding within the glass the curvy female before him.

“Arise, Knight,” she said, lifting her hand gently.

The Human stood back, giving him way.

The panther’s eyes glowed an unnatural yellow as he gazed at her.

“How has your training served you?” she asked.

“Well, Eldra,” he said. “There is something in me that wishes to speak.”

She quirked an eyebrow. “Oh?”

“I do not know what to call it. It’s as though my body speaks against me.”

“Ah,” she said in understanding. “I see now. It is your former self.”

“My former . . . ?” he trailed as his mind was suddenly assailed by images of children and family.

He grabbed his head and started to fall.

In a flash, she waved her arm about.

“Forget!” she shouted, her voice resonating through the office in which the knight stood.

The Human took a step back, nearly falling over with the force of the energy that emanated from the mirror.

Instantly, the panther straightened slightly. He rose half way before standing at attention.

“I see that your touch was not what it once was—you’ve left a remnant of his former self,” she said as a critical eye fell on the Human.

“Perhaps . . . I was overhasty in my methods, though he should have awoken with none of who he was.”

“Don’t be stupid,” she murmured. “The quality does not become you and only serves to enrage me. Take some time to know with whom you meddle. I shouldn’t have to say this to one of your standing, but some minds are stronger than others. The souls of these mortals yearn for lofty things. Sometimes, their wills are more intractable.”

The Human nodded carefully as he eyed the panther out of the corner of his eye.

“Indeed,” he said slowly.

“Go forth, Noble Slave,” she said to the panther, “go forth and complete your training. That task which has been set before you is a daunting one, and if you fail, you’re only losing your life,” she said.

The panther nodded and bowed.

When he stood straight, he found the mirror empty.

“Go, you are dismissed,” her voice echoed through the room.

The Human grinned maniacally and turned to the panther.

“Now, your  _real_  training starts.”

 


	20. The Newcomer

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> We gain further insight into the mind of Nyx as she prepares her attack. A newcomer arrives to challenge Silver, and she brings with her her own ideas regarding interpersonal relationships.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Special Acknowledgement: First and foremost I would like to thank my editor Soildier for his help in preparing this chapter.
> 
> Author's Note: Greetings everybody! I wanted to thank everybody who reviewed this chapter as the story progresses. It's only been the first few weeks of grad school and already it's kicking my ass. It's nothing I can't handle, but it is an awful lot all at once. As I mentioned before, chapters may be coming a little later. This one is done but was only barely finished before the first. The next time I may not be so lucky. However, I am still planning to continue the story and will absolutely be doing so in my spare time. Wish me luck, and I hope you all enjoy this chapter.
> 
> As always, please review as I find it immensely helpful!
> 
> That's all for now, and as always, happy reading!
> 
> General Statement: As I stated before, I welcome any and all criticism pertaining to the story. If I miss a bit of grammar here or there let me know so I can fix it. If there's something that strikes you a mistake or an error let me know so that I can fix that, too; and yes, I do fix mistakes that are pointed out to me. Speaking from personal experience, nothing can take me out of a story more than a misspelt word or a grammatical mistake—especially if they're too common. Any other comments, questions, or concerns? Feel free to PM me.
> 
> Disclaimer: This is a work of fanfiction and has no claim whatsoever on the characters of Nick Wilde and Judy Hopps who are the sole property of The Walt Disney Company. In no way have I sought money, monetary value, nor profit of any kind for the writing of this story.
> 
> Warning: There are two sex scenes in this chapter—one in the middle-ish of the chapter and one at the end. If you don't like them you can skip over them, of course, but at the end of the last sex scene, the scene leaves off with an event that will lead into the next chapter that is not a sex thing.

 

_The dark-haired queen walked down a long corridor toward the ornate, gilded doors before her. The intricate carvings stood in relief, creating a warm contrast with the deep browns in which the swirling gold patterns were set._

_Ahead of her, two guards stood on either side of the entryway whose stances became even more rigid as she drew near._

_Her white toga swished around her feet, her hair lightly covered in a dark veil that almost hid a bronze diadem._

_She came to a stop before the doors and looked to her left and raised an eyebrow at the guard questioningly._

_“Your councilors await you within, Majesty,” he murmured._

_She nodded, and the guard to her right wordlessly moved to open the door before her._

_Outside the walls of the castle, the wailing and screams of terrified citizens could be heard bemoaning the fall of their city._

_On the outskirts of the civil landscape, chunks of burnt and crumbling city wall lay strewn about._

_The air was putrid with the stench of burning flesh and refuse while the wind carried the scent of sun rotten blood._

_The conquering queen took a breath as she moved into the centre of the room, taking command of the space. Along the far wall in the court room sat a line of four thrones set above the room on a slightly raised dais. She took in the room, beholding a row of twelve men clad in black and one single woman whose arms were free though her hands had clearly been recently unbound._

_The young lady, who appeared to be no more that sixteen, crossed her arms somewhat defensively. A deep purple gown swept down the length of her figure, hugging her curves. Her green eyes appeared dull with weariness, and a profound sense of worry harrowed her innocent features._

_A bearded gentleman with a long white beard and a balding head strode forward._

_“Vice Chanselor,” the queen nodded politely._

_“Majesty,” he said, bowing slightly._

_“Arise and behold the product of your successes,” she said, smiling as she made a sweeping gesture with her hand toward the open windows behind her._

_The smoke and black ash that wafted through the air was like a vision of justice and righteousness to her fancied mind: the product of a job well done._

_“Bask in your success, for none of this would’ve been possible without you!” she exclaimed happily._

_“Not at all. You were my commander. To you shall go the glory, Anassa. Yours was the cunning, after all, that won for us so great a victory.”_

_The young woman behind them squirmed uncomfortably._

_“Why, look you now,” said the queen as she turned to regard the redheaded girl, “who is this young thing?” she asked._

_“She’s the heir apparent of this kingdom. Or she would be had we not taken this land by force.”_

_The dark-haired woman turned back to regard the young lady appraisingly._

_“Heir apparent? I thought King Dydimos ruled here.”_

_“So he did, My Queen,” replied the chancellor, “but then his siblings would take the throne. Who stands before you now not more than fifteen winters is his sister.”_

_“Ah, I see. And here I thought I had slain his kin.”_

_He grinned. “You might have done. They breed like rabbits and hide their bastards.”_

_“A problem with which I have grown uncomfortably familiar,” replied the queen._

_“Nyx!” hissed the redhead as she started forward slightly, her purple dress shuffling along the floor as she tried to make her way forward._

_The guards on either side quickly seized her under the arms and held her fast._

_“Ah, it speaks!” replied Nyx ignoring the girl’s protest._

_The chancellor smiled. “She is the former king’s youngest sister. She speaks only their barbaric tongue. All the guards have been able to understand are her tears.”_

_Nyx turned to the chancellor again. “Are there any other siblings?”_

_“No, Your Grace. We slew them all. Except for her. Some of the other guards took a liking to her.”_

_“Oh?” said Nyx as she looked at the young lady who was now trembling slightly._

_“Her virtue’s intact,” started the chancellor. “I warned them that they ought to do nothing with her as you had already declared peace by the time they’d found her. They were awaiting your orders.”_

_The guards on either side of the young lady stood stock still, aiming to look impressive._

_Nyx smiled slightly and walked toward the young lady. “My, but she is a beauty, isn’t she? Such a shame her veins run red with a traitor’s blood. She might have been allowed to have a high position here. Would have made an excellent wife for some duke or prince. Such beauty ought not to be allowed to spoil, don’t you agree Chancellor?”_

_He nodded solemnly. “Most assuredly, Anassa.”_

_Nyx looked up at the guard to her right._

_“Guard, if we made her a whore and kept her here at the palace, would she stay pretty?”_

_The guard swallowed slightly and looked down at the redhead heatedly before looking back up. “Undoubtedly, Anassa.”_

_“Well!” said Nyx as she turned to the other councillors around her, “We’d be doing her a service, then!”_

_“Oh, no doubt!” said the chancellor greedily as he eyed the now petrified young woman._

_“How’s that?” she asked as she looked at the young woman who now tremble fearfully. “Oh, would you look at that?” said Nyx. “It understands every word!” she sneered._

_She came toward the girl and examined her from head to toe, pausing before addressing the young lady._

_“Kain vaori mjoelkeri gwingelda?” said Nyx in a foreign tongue. The young lady appeared stunned. “Poina mo kherii ne? Sumene at i hor jolkaor,” continued Nyx as she lightly brushed the young woman’s hair back. “Ja viorii en aet mens: Ihoravik jetz sumenioi cwa eastranor e ni hjaoret, ihovarik ricmides.”_

_“What did she say?” whispered one of the councillors._

_The chancellor cleared his throat laughingly. “Her Majesty says, ‘Which do you think you would prefer? Torture or whoring? Not that you have a choice. I just want you to think: You’ll still have handmaidens putting the gold in your hair, you’ll have rich foods.’”_

_Nyx’s smile broadened as she looked on the redhead’s fearful expression before turning her gaze to the guard to her right. “You’re awfully eager, aren’t you?”_

_The guard looked straight ahead. “My wife is my homeland and the nights are long.”_

_Nyx smiled lightly and looked again to the young woman._

_“It’s a fair assessment of your feelings, Servant, but they may have to wait,” she said. “I can’t afford having you or anyone else accidentally raising children to her royal line.”_

_“What is The Queen’s command?” asked the guard._

_“Take her. Fetch a surgeon and tear out her womb.”_

_The young woman squirmed desperately._

_“Now, now,” said Nyx to the young lady, “I’ve offered to support your continued existence here, but you’re mad if I’m going to allow you to have any children.” She turned to the guard. “Once she gets better—the surgery I hear is a difficult one to undergo—she may be of some use to you all, yet.”_

_“Don’t!” shouted the woman in a thick accent._

_“It’s already done,” said Nyx, a bored expression in her tone. “Guards,” she said as she looked to each of the men, “you are dismissed for the day. She’s yours to do with as you please.”_

_“Your Highness is most generous,” bowed the guard._

_“Yes, yes,” replied Nyx, waving them away as she turned back to the chancellor. “As you wish.”_

_The vice chancellor came forward as the woman struggled behind them._

_“The matter of children was broached by you,” he said._

_Nyx nodded slightly._

_“That is, you wanted no pretenders to your power,” he continued._

_She nodded again._

_“Follow me, Your Grace—I have something pertinent to show you,” he murmured as he turned away, leading her through the great doors._

_Through winding corridors, she found that they were gradually heading down into the lower parts of the castle._

_Eventually they came to a stop before a door, the gothic arch into which it was set pointing slightly at the keystone._

_“Such beautiful craftsmanship is wasted here in the prisons,” she commented mostly to herself._

_“Perhaps so,” replied the chancellor, “but the decadence of your now slain enemy knew no bounds.”_

_“Indeed not,” she said as she arched a brow._

_Striding forward, the chancellor took hold of the knob and opened the door, stepping through._

_Nyx quickly followed and was stunned at what met her eyes. The room was filled with children, their wails echoing off the walls._

_Guards, some fifty in number, stood around the room, keeping the exists blocked._

_“What is the meaning of this?” she asked after she’d had an opportunity to take in what she was seeing and reassure herself that she was indeed not dreaming._

_“These are the children of your enemies.”_

_She looked at him._

_“The former royal family was quite prodigious,” he added._

_“I thought I had destroyed them—the dead king’s siblings,” she returned._

_“All fifteen are now dead except the young lady with whom you spoke,” he murmured._

_“Many of them before today. Many of them before they had married. They can’t have had so many children!”_

_“That doesn’t preclude bastards or children fathered before you slew their sires.”_

_She nodded, looking around at the sobbing children ranging at her guess between four and ten._

_Brothers and sisters were holding each other in tight embraces. Young girls where holding their toddler siblings._

_“You’re certain these were all of them?” she asked._

_The chancellor nodded. “They were caught in a secret tunnel attempting to escape. We were awaiting your word. As it so happens, when there was word that your forces were marching, all the children were sought out and brought here—bastards and all.”_

_“My word on what?” she asked, going back to his previous statement._

_“On what to do with them,” he clarified as he gestured to the room. “We could make them slaves, we could make them servants, we cou-”_

_“Slay them,” she said._

_The chancellor turned and looked at her somewhat askance. “Your pardon?”_

_“You heard me just fine. I’m not rearing my enemy’s bloodline. Not even to enslave them. Their lives are over from this point on, and heaven knows my own servants are better than any they would ever make. They would only grow to hate and resent me. Many might even chose to try to slay me when they’re older and strong. No, it won’t do. Slay them. Slay them all.”_

_After looking at her for a moment, the chancellor nodded. “It is as you say, Highness,” he bowed._

_Clapping his hands, the room went silent._

_All fifty of the guards along the walls and walking among the children looked up at the old man and their queen on the balcony above them._

_Nyx watched as bearded man held out his hand palm down before giving a thumbs up._

_She smiled and turned away at the sudden sharp and fearful screams and gurgling voices filled the air._

_The chancellor followed her as she stepped out of the room and closed the door behind them._

_The shrill screams became louder and louder, echoing and re-echoing down the stone halls._

_“Leave Us,” she said to the vice chancellor when she realised he seemed to be waiting for her next command._

_Bowing slightly, he turned and left._

_The sound of his footsteps mingled with the cries of pain and terror._

_She leant against the cool stone of the wall behind her as the trembling cries filled her ears._

_Closing her eyes, relishing in the cold surrounding her, she smiled at a job well done._

-.-.-.-

Nyx opened her eyes as the vision cleared from her mind. It was the vision that always came to mind before she committed to large undertakings. The time was coming fast, and the sun was setting quickly, now. Her dark eyes glinted as the shadows seemed to swirl about her face before clearing, washing away like watery drops of ink.

Her pale skin seemed to glow, shining from out the mirror as she started at the Human before her.

“How long until you plan to send the Knight?” he asked.

“That depends on how ready he is,” she said tiredly, now fully coming out of her reverie.

“Will it be today?”

“Tonight, I’m sure. Strike when most are asleep,” she said. “Prey animals take to the night more easily. If nothing else, we’ll certainly maximise the damage done to them.”

The Human nodded. “As per your command, the knight is training vigorously.”

“With him in play, and Nemesis out of the way—or soon to be so—the damage he can do will be formidable. I want as many as possible wiped out: have them aim for the sick wards before going for the residential areas. Our contact on the Bunnyburrow city council said that there are many mammals who’ve taken up residence that the house? Have your mammals show no mercy—It’s a symbolic hit if nothing else and certain to send a message to the rest of the Burrow. If the Knight dies or the other die, count it as no great loss. Just as long as we get the message through. Is that understood?” she asked.

The Human nodded and smirked slightly.

“What the troops leave undone let the Knight tear through,” she continued. “Have you got the teams ready for infiltration?”

“They have been briefed. Top tier mammals, recommended by Swinton.”

“It sounds as though this plan is well in hand, then. What is the time of the day?”

“Just past three,” he replied.

She nodded. “Not too much longer, then. The nights are growing and lengthening. The darkness deepens. On them shall fall a grave destiny. If they want to ruin my plans, there will be a punishment—and a punishment is nothing if it doesn’t leave behind it a trail of tears, flesh, and blood,” she said, smiling widely. “I’ll be back in four hours. Hasten the preparations and make certain that the way is clear to their home. I want to see them all burn.”

-.-.-.-

_4:17 PM_

Jack stepped out of the shower and reached for a towel off the rack. He dried his fur before wrapping the towel over his waist and stepped out of the bathroom. He ached badly after the training session that had ended not half an hour ago and the hot shower had done wonders for his nerves and muscles.

Walking into his room, he went over to a wooden dresser opposite the door with simple brass handles.

As he reached it, a familiar scent reached his nose bringing back memories of sleepless nights and passionate movements. He took another deep breath and let it savour in his brain. He maintained his composure up until a familiar voice reached his ears.

“So, I have a question for you,” came the feminine overture.

Jack felt a smile cross his lips and felt a familiar tightening in his chest.

He turned around and inhaled sharply at the sight that met him.

A soft and _very_ naked arctic fox regarded him from his bed. She was on her side, her head propped up on one arm, and he was provided and ample view of her lush form as her deep, blue eyes regarded him sultrily from her relaxed pose.

The buck closed his eyes as he felt himself immediately harden before opening them again, not caring that his natural reaction was so visible and noted the somewhat hungry look in her eyes when she saw the tent in the cloth around him.

His _own_ eyes travelled down from her face, along the crest of her bosom, and settled at the joining of her thighs before returning to her piercing eyes. She arched an eyebrow When he spoke next, his voice was somewhat heavy, tinged with overwhelming need.

“You know,” he started slowly, “that’s not really a question.”

He came toward her and let the towel dropped, wanting to catch her reaction when she caught full sight of him.

The vixen licked her lips and let her eyes wander to his lower body.

Scars crossed all over his lower body, some fresh but the majority of them were old. There were many nights she’d spent with him in post coital bliss, tracing them with her finger, memorising them.

She looked back up to his face to read the heated look in his eyes.

“Looks like I’ve got my answer, anyway,” she sniggered.

“Yeah, well,” he said as he reached the bed, “you kinda’ have that effect on a guy . . . .”

She scooched over, allowing him room on the bed. She lay back, spreading herself.

“Jesus fucking Christ,” he murmured as he caught full sight of her gorgeous form, “you really like to show off, don’t you?” She giggled but made no other comment as she gazed up at him, presenting him with an inviting smile. “You have no idea how long I’ve wanted this again,” he whispered, a hard edge to his tone.

He hopped up onto the bed and moved over her, allowing his eyes to roam over her, feasting himself on the vision of her fur. He couldn’t get enough of the sight of her.

He reached a paw forward and allowed them to run through the softness of the fur on her sides and belly. His eyes darkened as he touched her warm flesh beneath. He took a deep breath, and her fragrant scent filled his nose, and he cursed to himself as he grit his teeth: he wasn’t just hard; he _throbbed_.

She laughed softly as he moved over her and began kissing her chest. She let out a contented moan. “It’s been a while for me, too.”

Now it was his turn to chuckle. “Can’t get enough of me, can you?”

He moved up to look into her eyes.

“Never,” she smirked. “Not since I saw your fuzzy bunny butt,” she laughed softly.

“Trust me,” returned Jack, “since the first time I saw you naked I wondered what it’d be like to be with you.”

She trapped him in a smoky gaze, and Jack’s heart melted as she spoke.

“Maybe I was,” she murmured. “I know the look of a male when he wants me.”

“You have no idea,” he intoned softly, “how much I wanted you after that; and you kept on showing off, too.”

She smirked. “And?”

“And . . .” he continued heatedly, “I couldn’t help wanting you. I was so unprofessional . . . .”

“Oh, ho!” she replied laughingly, “I gotta say that getting you to throw out the playbook when it came to fraternisation between personnel was one of my greatest achievements,” she said as he kissed her neck. “I know how to use my feminine wiles,” she murmured softly as he continued around her jaw.

She felt him shift between her thighs and let out a sharp gasp when she felt him push inside her, slowly. She watched him to see the concentration on his face. He was looking down between them, slowly moving just in and out of her sensitive flesh, focusing on slowly working himself within her. He looked back at her ardently when he’d hilted himself and flashed her a cocky grin before leaning over her again and kissing her jaw line.

“We may be talking,” he said as he kissed her lo[s, “just a bit too much,” he finished as he began to slowly thrust into her moist folds. The heat of her body warmed him as her flesh surrounded him, and he let out a groan of satisfaction as a sensation of coming home swoll in his chest.

“Ah!” she gasped as she felt him pick up the pace. “God, I’ve needed you for so long, Jack! You have no idea how much I’ve missed you!” she said as she held him tightly. His paws roamed her form, massaging her as his quick thrusts filled her, sending tremors of pleasure throughout her body.

He chuckled as his pleasure mounted. “You know, I still maintain,” he grunted as he thrust faster, “that you never _did_ ask me a question.”

She gasped again. “At this point in our _totally_ professional relationship, I think we’ve moved beyond words.” She let out another gasp as she felt another wave of pleasure envelop her.

He let out a grunt of exertion. “You will be when _I’m_ through with you!”

“Just the way I . . . I like it . . . !” she moaned. “God, yes!” she shouted as his movements massaged her clit.

She bit her lower lip as Jack backed away from his short thrusts and tried his best to set a slower pace, wanting to enjoy and savour the pleasure. He lifted his head at times in rapture at the sensitive ecstasy gripping his erection.

“Oh, God . . . !” he ground out as the pleasure pain clouded his senses.

“Better than working yourself out on a lonely night, huh?” she managed as she gazed up at him from the haze of euphoria.

He couldn’t answer her from the depths of his feeling but merely fixed her with lustful stare as he gasped out a slight laugh.

She felt herself all the more aroused at the evident pleasure he was deriving from within her. He was beyond words, and she saw his breathing hasten, felt his heartbeat quicken, as he filled her again and again.

She urged him on with cries of pleasure as she called his name.

He whispered hers in return in passionate murmurs heated with a fire from the depths of his desire.

She let out slow gasps as she felt her passage grip him as she seized in pleasure, her orgasm washing over her in a powerful burst as she thrust herself up against him as she cried out. She clasped her hands behind his back, gently running her fingers through his fur, sending delightful tingles up and down his spine as she did so.

She felt her soft undulations grip him faster and faster, each sending a sharp pleasure through her until at last she let out a cry of pleasure as a wave of pure exultation sundered through her, emanating from the apex of her body as a second orgasm took hold of her.

Jack let out strangled gasps as he thrust into her, his hips sending sparks of passion throughout her body as his desperate movements worked themselves into her, and as she looked at him she felt a swelling in her heart as the source of her pleasure worked himself over her with abandon, trying to give her more. She closed her eyes to simply _feel_ him as he worked toward his own finish.

She heard him grunt in sharp pleasure above her, and she opened her eyes to find his own gazing down at her, watching her reaction to him.

He felt both pride and pleasure swell in his chest as she writhed in delight beneath him, smiling brightly as snatches of laughter escaped her lips.

He felt the tell-tale swelling of his loins. He was about to shoot in a matter of seconds and had barely enough clarity to ask permission.

“C-can I . . . ?” he gasped, “Wh-where do you want it?” he asked quickly.

From the grips of her orgasm, she saw how close he was, how unable to hold back. “I-it’s fine if you just wanna . . . inside me!” she said between breaths.

He nodded, and a look of relief passed over his face as a feeling of relief swept through him.

He let loose and pounded quickly, the movement prolonging her own pleasure, and she watched him close his eyes in concentration before his thrusting suddenly stopped, slamming home with a final thrust as he held himself fast and flush against her, burying his length in her as deeply as he could, lifting his head, gritting his teeth, and clenching his eyes shut.

Pleasure gripped his length as a thunderbolt of pleasure fired through him.

He pressed harder against her as he growled, wanting to plant himself deep, giving her everything as the stress and horror of his most recent experiences were confounded as he participated in this most life affirming act.

He growled as he gave her everything, pouring his heart and soul into her as pulsed.

She watched him open his mouth and let out a grunt.

“Oh God!” he bit out as he felt his seed pump into her. “Fuck!” he grit out again.

A few moments after the initial pleasure swept over him, he felt himself instinctively move his hips in slow thrusts as he spilled inside her, letting out tiny moans as he finished off.

He let out a final grunt as the pulsing left off and was left panting over her, his body feeling like jelly.

His heart was pounding in his ears, and it took him a few moments to collect himself.

What seemed to him like an eternity later, he opened his eyes to find her looking up at him just as breathlessly.

He leaned over her and kissed her deeply. He ran his hands softly over her naked form before he felt his softening member slip out of her.

Taking that as a signal, he moved off of her and rolled to his side. She rolled to face him and fixed him with one of the brightest smiles he’d ever seen.

“Now . . . that was well worth the wait,” she said lazily.

“I’ll drink to that,” he replied with a hint of a chuckle, his voice still breathy from exertion.

She laughed in her throat as she regarded him easily.

“I should probably get going,” she sighed as she pushed herself up on one arm.

“So soon?” he asked, slightly put off.

“Well,” she remarked as she looked back at him as she sat up, “there’s no room here so I had to book a hotel in town.”

Jack eyed her for a moment as she arose and started for her clothing which she’d laid on a chair in the corner. The sight of her naked form walking across the room stirred him, and a strange vulnerability touched his soul as he formed his next words.

“Well, I mean, you could always share _this_ room with me . . .” he trailed off. His voice was confident but hid beneath it a fear of rejection he couldn’t quite understand.

She looked back over her shoulder.

“Are you sure I wouldn’t be putting you out?” she asked shyly as she eyed him cautiously.

He nodded slowly. “It’d be fine with me,” he returned.

“Yeah,” she said at length, seemingly in thought, “but with a hotel, we each get our own space. I can buy my own meals rather than having to rely on what’s here at the house. There’s a lot going for a hotel in the main part of town.”

Jack nodded, an odd constriction forming in his chest.

“Yeah, but,” he countered, “if you stayed here, it’d be easier to meet up for sex.”

As if that were all that interested him. He liked her and he wanted her to stay around, but he wasn’t sure how to voice those thoughts without sounding like a sap. She was grounded and down to Earth. He could easily see her shutting him down.

Or would she? Maybe she felt the same, he wondered.

She looked at him askance but noticed the flash of emotion behind his eyes. It made her heart seize with affection but chose instead to let a slight look of amusement touched the corners of her eyes.

“Well,” she started slowly, coyly, as she turned back toward him, giving him another full view of her stunning beauty, “that _does_ sound enticing.”

She quirked a smile and walked back toward the bed, shifting her hips from side to side as she neared him. She felt her heartbeat quicken and felt the moistness of what he’d given her wet her inner thighs, clinging to her fur.

He grit his teeth and felt himself harden again in spite of their most recent exertion as he stared at her lower body, watching as his seed marked his territory, his eyes roaming along her beautifully sculpted legs. He’d had lovers in the past before, of course; but _never_ had he ached for someone as much as he did for the vixen before him and never had he felt a claim staked on a female as strongly as he felt one on her.

They kissed each other again and again as she bent down to reach his lips, giving short quick pecks as she crawled into the bed with him.

“So . . .” he trailed off, breathlessly in between rounds of kissing, “you wanna go ahead and cancel those hotel reservations?” he asked as her hips quickened over his.

“I gotta be honest with you,” she said as the easy sensations emanating from their recent joining thrummed through her, “I never made the reservations.”

“I’m gonna have to shower again,” he said breathlessly as he noted the matted fur around his waist.

“Don’t blame me,” she snickered, “that’s mostly _you_ ,” she accused.

The wrinkled sheets seemed to billow around her lithe form, their whiteness seeming dun in comparison to her fur.

Jack reached over and took a paw full of it, appreciating its softness as he let it slip through his fingers. He blinked slowly as he ran his gaze up her body, from her nether region along her lightly defined torso, allowing them to pause at her chest before letting them roam over her face. She was staring at him just as intently, her head propped up on her elbow.

She cocked an eyebrow and smirked. “Still like what you see?’

It was the understatement of the century, Jack thought; he didn’t think he would ever get enough of feasting his eyes on her.

He shrugged tactfully, and she broke into hearty laughter at his ridiculous act. She knew he thought she was beautiful, and his show of disinterest was a façade he wore to gain an upper hand in the game of love. He was still trying to protect himself: they were both technically on the job, and they could both still end up dead; and if either of them died, it might be a bit easier for one or the other of them to leave the world without mourning the life they might have lived. She saw the sense of it, but on the other paw, she didn’t want to live her life regretting that she hadn’t taken a chance on love.

She’d written a note that said, “I love you,” in her finest hand. In the end, she didn’t know where she stood and hadn’t sent it.

Her laughter ebbed, and she looked at him adoringly, and Jack felt a familiar pang in the vicinity of his chest—a loneliness he couldn’t name—as he felt the emotion in her gaze.

“I know I like what _I_ see every time I look at _you_ ,” she murmured softly. Her soft voice was music to him no matter what she said, and especially now, it seemed to him, it rang like chiming silver.

He could tell from the way she’d said it that he was supposed to take her comment as a half joke, but there was an underlying seriousness to it—a kernel of truth. The way she looked at him now made him suspect that she was growing “too comfortable” with him in a way that would only end in tragedy for animals like them.

As she regarded him, she found her thoughts running in a similar direction.

He had almost died. She had almost had to burry yet another friend and confident. Another love.

She didn’t know the whole story, but she knew Jack and she knew he was no traitor. Even without investigating, she knew.

And this supposedly all powerful mammal—who was no mammal at all, she had learned—had nearly needlessly taken Jack’s life. That require retribution of some kind or another, and she thought she had just the way to do it.

Bur first, she needed to hear from Jack.

“Jack . . . what happened? Was it . . . was it . . . bad?” she said, not quite sure how to ask what she wanted to know.

The smile slowly faded from his lips and he looked down between the, for a moment before answering. “It . . . wasn’t an experience I’d ever care to repeat.”

“Almost dying never is,” she said somewhat ruefully. “What did he do to you?”

Jack let out a sigh and continued to avoid eye contact with her. “You know what he did.”

“No, I know what your injuries were. I mean, what did he _do?_ ”

He let out another sigh. “He . . . terrified me. When he started coming after me like the terminator, I thought I was a gonner. Like that time we were pinned down in Tunuga. This . . . this was different, though,” he breathed.

“How?” she asked, raising an eyebrow slightly.

“Because in Tunuga . . . the enemy didn’t know who I was. They didn’t know who _we_ were. They were just . . . trying to kill us—some faceless mercenaries. But when Silver came after me . . . he came after me because I was _me._ He was after me _personally._ Some stranger, with whom I’d had no contact and whom I’d never even seen before wanted me dead. Like a hitman. A hit man that comes after you with the power of the universe at his fingertips. Like a hurricane with the impetus to destroy you and only you. Murder me in cold blood. And the worst part about it is as I was scrambling to get away I realised that I was powerless to stop him. It was almost . . . like a game to him. He could have torn me limb from limb before I’d even know what hit me, but instead he drew it out so that I’d know what was coming. So that I’d know that I was going to die. Like a fatal cancer diagnosis—there’s no compromising with it, it just takes you.”

She suddenly hugged him, pulling him tightly against her. “It’s fine, it’s fine. I’m here, now.”

He nodded into her fur, closing his eyes as he breathed in her soothing scent. He had tried his best to hide these thoughts, to put them out of his mind as unimportant since Silver had rectified his nearly fatal error, but it had still impacted him in a way that, up to that point, nothing ever had.

“That bastard’s gonna get what’s coming to him, I swear, Babe,” she murmured as she held him.

Suddenly, he shoved her away.

She looked at him confused for a moment before he took her face in his paws, looking deeply into her eyes.

“Don't!” he said sternly.

“Don’t wha-”

“Don’t do what I know you want to do. Do _not_ go up against him. You can’t win and it’s ultimately pointless. He’s trying to help us now.”

She looked at him blankly for a moment before shaking out of his hold. “What the hell are you saying?! He needs _someone_ to give him some straight talk!”

“He saved my life!”

“After nearly killing you! Did you forget the day you spent hospitalised? When you thought you were never going to be able to walk or even feed yourself?! Jesus Christ! He doesn’t get a pass for that! He wasn’t supposed to fucking try to kill you in the first place!”

“He had a very good reason to think I was the enemy! Please, just don’t do anything. The situation here is tenuous as it is what with everyone being at each other’s throats!”

“I’ll raise a stink if I feel like it!”

“Just listen to me! _Please!_ For all he knew I might have been a spy intent on killing people here at the burrow! It’s not like he made his decision in a vacuum!”

“I don’t play that game thinking about what _might_ have been true!” she returned furiously. “‘It _could_ be true, it _might_ be true, it _would_ be true’ is all a bunch of bullshit: Something either _is_ true or it _isn’t_! And one of the things you _don’t_ do is make decisions like killing somebody on what might or might not be true!”

“We’ve made decisions like that before in the team!” he said, jumping up from the bed and pacing a bit.

“Based on evidence!” she replied.

“He had evidence!”

“But he was wrong! That’s the _fact_ of the matter! I don’t understand this! How can you possibly defend him! Sure he healed you but he only did that after he tried to kill you and left you with a broken back in the hospital! You died three fucking times!” she shouted, her eyes tearing up. “Do you know how fucking hard it was for me to get that call three fucking times?!” she cried as she sat up on the edge of the bed, her legs hanging off the side. “If _all_ I do is give him a piece of my fucking mind it would be the least of hi-”

“Jesus fucking Christ, don’t you get how fucking _dangerous_ he is?!” he roared, his anger flaring, his desperation to make her see at its peak. “Don’t you fucking get that if he wanted to he could blink his eye and tear you to shreds?! This morning I saw him drop Elhsand from about one-hundred feet in the air or so—It could have fucking _killed_ him if Silver hadn’t merely been using a _live fucking mammal_ for a _demonstration!_ ” He heaved a breath, striding forward, and quickly caught her stunned face between his paws. “Do you have any fucking clue what it would do to me if anything fucking happened to you?!” he said quietly though no less intently.

She looked at him, tears flowing down her face. “So that’s why . . . you don’t want me going after him? You’re scared?” she said as she covered his paws with her own.

“Of what he could do to you. Of what he could do to _us_. Any _one_ of us.”

She only looked at him as his paws left her face.

“His ethical boundaries don’t lie where ours do,” he said softly now. “He has a sense of right and wrong, but it doesn’t sit where our sense of right and wrong does. Not always, anyway. He made it clear to Honey the night he got here that he was only working with her because our causes happened to align. He needs to get rid of the Human and he needs our help to do that. In turn, since the Human has powers and abilities that exceed ours, he said that he’d be willing to help us out with our goals.”

She swallowed heavily and took him by the chin. He looked deeply into her eyes, an aura seeming to glow around him in his earnestness.

“Yesterday,” said Jack as he swallowed, “Honey had to have a whole meeting about how we all just need to get along—at least for now—in order to survive. We can’t spend our time fighting with each other because it’s not productive. Even more, I know that fighting _him_ is useless. There’s no getting anywhere with him, as far as physical strength goes.”

“Then he shouldn’t mind being my punching bag,” she smirked, laughing slightly as she wiped away her tears.

“Please,” he said softly though insistently, “don’t do anything stupid. You’ve read the same intel that we sent to COR Central.”

“It just feels . . . so impotent. So helpless. I don’t like feeling like there’s this entity that can do anything to us and we can’t do anything to it to make sure it doesn’t fuck up again . . .” she trailed.

“We already have that,” said Jack. “It’s called nature.”

She let out a laugh. “Silver is _not_ natural. Nature is something you’re supposed to be able to understand somehow—this . . . this whatever-the-fuck Silver is . . . he’s not good—he’s just on our side right now.”

“But as long as he’s on our side why not use that to our advantage?”

“Because he could have taken your life.”

“I’m just one life!” he insisted. “Forget about that—we’re facing something much bigger here!”

She sighed and looked away, wiping away another tear. “You’re too nice to him, you know. You make a damn good lawyer. If he ever needed an advocate, he’d be glad to know that he had you in his corner.”

“Does that mean you’ll listen to me?” he asked, eyeing her pointedly.

“It means . . . that I’ll be on guard around him.”

He scowled. “I’m not sure I like your wordplay.”

“I’m not sure I like him. I don’t like the way everyone feels like they have to walk on eggshells around him. I don’t like that we all have to give him a wide berth and how he can just do whatever the fuck he wants and we just have to take it.”

“Because we don’t know him. We know he’s dangerous—we know he kills. We don’t know what his boundaries are or what sets him off or any of those things and he sure as hell isn’t volunteering any of those things.”

“Because the mystery gives him an advantage!”

He looked at her questioningly.

“What I mean,” she started, “is that as long as we know nothing about him, he has an advantage. Lots of leaders will cultivate an air of mystery to make them seem more formidable. Without that mystery, the emperor is naked.”

“He _is_ formidable, though,” returned Jack.

“Sure, I’ll buy that. But then why all this mystery. You know, I have a knack for getting on people’s nerves.”

“Please don’t.”

“And I think someone needs to take him down a peg. Even symbolically.”

“There’s no way he’d let that happen. You wanna fight him and I’m telling you that it’s an exercise in futility.”

“Not futility. Striking against him would make me feel better. If I could get one good swipe in, even against his blade, it’d be worth it. And along the way, if I happen to hit on something that makes him react, we’ll know a bit more about him than we did.”

“Oh, please don’t joke about this!” he said sharply.

“Who’s joking!” she said suddenly. “He’s not going to kill us—we know this already! We all need to stop treating him like he shits gold! We need to stop deferring to him as if he’s done something to earn our respect. Right now, from what I can tell from you and from anybody else, he has your respect through force and fear. Nobody _likes_ him and he certainly didn’t do anything to _earn_ our respect. Honey’s been a bitch—she was a bitch for a _long_ ass time, but she had our respect because she was competent: because she got shit done! She managed a whole fucking wing of COR without a lieutenant or anything and got recognition a bunch of times because of it. As for Silver: What the fuck has he done to earn our respect? He saved . . . who are they? Red and Carrots?”

Jack nodded.

“Right, yeah, so he saved them, and that was good, but then he nearly killed you! He left you to die in a fucking hospital bed to live out the rest of your fucking life as an invalid! Does that sound like something that demands respect?”

“He helped me learn something about myself along the way too! I had to go on this weird, fucked up psychological journey!”

She looked at him askance. “What?” she asked

“He found the Human’s mark on my soul. It was tied in with a repressed memory of seeing my parents die. The Human killed them!”

“So . . .” she started slowly, “you went on that journey together and became friends or . . .” she trailed.

“That’s part of it. Look, I know we talk a lot of shit about him, but he’s trying to do something good.”

“What _he_ thinks is good,” she corrected.

He nodded.

“Okay . . .” she trailed, “so he’s done one good thing. And don’t think I’m not gonna ask you more about that later, but how did that come about?”

“I . . .” Jack trailed. “I wanted him to see my memories. I . . . he kept insisting that I was the Human’s toy. That I was leading him right to us. That I was working for him. So I wanted him to see my memories, and he did. Turns out I had the Human’s mark, but it wasn’t my fault.”

She looked at him quizzically. “So . . . you mean he had the ability to view your memories the whole time and didn’t? He just decided to kill you right off?”

Jacked opened his mouth to answer, but no words came out. There was nothing he could say. There was no denying that that that was a gigantic fuck up on Silver’s part.

That fuck up was a deal breaker as far as she was concerned.

“He’s a fucking moron,” she bit out.

“To be fair,” said Jack, somewhat deflated, “there was no way he could have predicted the exact set of circumstances that led to me being in the situation that I was in.”

She shook her head. “There’s no excuse for killing the innocent.”

He leant his head against her somewhat defeatedly. “Oh God, I can see you won’t be changed in this, will you?” he asked.

“Don’t you worry,” she murmured. “I can take care of myself,” she said.

Fury, anger, hate, and rage flowed through her veins at the injustice of the whole situation. Jack’s valiant attempts to keep the peace were honourable, but in the end, see didn’t want peace. Not with the monster who seemed to think it was okay to walk over everyone—even if he didn’t know that that’s what he was doing. If nothing else, it would snap the faux fox out of any illusions that the mammals here were in any way okay with his manners or the situation.

Even if he were aware, it didn’t hurt to have someone remind him, she thought.

-.-.-.-

_5:07 PM_

“Mmm,” hummed Wilde as he rubbed his eyes as he blearily stared at the computer screen in front of him.

“Anything interesting?” asked Hopps somewhat tensely. She felt very strange having to tread carefully around him. Having to be so cautious was something she definitely wasn’t used to in terms of mammals’ feelings, but she was trying to be considerate of his since he was making what was for him a huge effort to be on amicable terms. As much as she might not have worried so much before about whether she were being rough or aggressive with someone, she appreciated that this was a situation where she _needed_ to be more considerate. She didn’t wanna say anything that might set him off.

Wilde stretched and hummed to himself. “Just reading an intel report on some of the shit that went down at Searton. You know you weren’t the only mammal to make contact with the Human?”

She gently nodded from her position as she speedread through a series of papers.

“Yeah,” she said carefully, her attention divided, her voice more conversational since his tone was easy.

He looked up. “Who?”

She shook her head. “I don’t know their names. I was the only senior officer that I knew of. If there were a guard a Searton, my guess is that he was a low-level peon who got moved in to guard duty. It’s lucky for him in a lot of ways since so many guards just look alike. No one really pays attention to them. Outside of species, that is. Aside from that, no one knows who you are.”

“Well, there was definitely someone else there.”

“Sure, I’m not debating that, but Honey kept us all from knowing who we were,” she said, stretching. “That way, if any one of us got caught, there’d be no way for any of us to turn on anyone else.”

Wilde looked up from his screen, perplexed. “One of Jack’s guards—the one you saw me arguing with in the hall last night—he told me that they knew who you were and what your roll was.”

Hopps nodded. “I’m not surprised. They were the ones who were handling the escape routes for the mammals I managed to free. It shouldn’t have taken long for them to piece things together. I mean, the fact that I was really only one point of contact that could have facilitated that kind of operation from within the ZPD is what would have tipped anybody off. And if you and or anyone else in the guard had been aware of what was really happening—that murdered prisoners were being freed—you would’ve figured out it was me, too.”

“But then why didn’t _we_ know?!” asked Wilde quietly, his harsh insistence evident in the way he held himself.

Her head popped up quickly and she turned to see the angry look in his eyes.

She swallowed for a moment. “I thought I’d made it clear,” she said, measuring her response as she tried to keep things calm, “that-”

“I _know_ what you told us,” he said, his voice thick with emotion, “but it just doesn’t seem right. That’s a huge thing to keep from us! How many of our friends and neighbours did you let us think were dead?”

“Many,” said Hopps, somewhat defeatedly. “It had to be kept secret. There was no way to let any of you operating within the city know what was going on without letting people in on the secret. You guys would’ve figured out that I was the point of contact about as quickly if not faster than Jack’s team were able to figure it out. Jack’s team is one thing: they weren’t in the Human’s domain and they weren’t at risk of being captured but you guys—everyone in Happy Town— _could_ have been captured. And it’s an open secret that you had your share of spies within the organisation. Any one of them could have figured things out along with the rest of you. That would’ve been an end to me and an end to what Honey and the rest of us were trying to do. Then you guys would’ve had information about COR and the Happy Town Guard leaking one with without any chance of an early warning, and Honey and the rest of them would have closed ranks.”

There was a brief pause as Wilde and Hopps looked at each other.

“It’s just . . . it might have made things easier for you—for me: well, for _everybody_ —if we’d all been included as a part off the plan.”

“Nick,” she sighed sadly, “I don’t know what you want from me. I’m sorry for the way things turned out. For letting you think that your friends had died or been disappeared. I’m sorry for the part that I played in propagandising the anti-pred causes that the government was advancing. But I can’t undo it, and I probably wouldn’t if I could. I did what I had to do in order to survive and to advance the survival of you and the animals in the city. It sucks. I know it does. The only thing that I can say is that I wish that it didn’t have to be this way. I wish that there had been a way for me to have helped out without Pricilla and Bellwether making me a part of their media machinery, but it just wasn’t in the cards for me or for you.”

He looked away and chuffed a sigh though his nose. “So you’re sorry but you wouldn’t take it back.”

She gulped but said nothing for a moment.

“Yeah,” said Wilde as he looked at her, “doesn’t sound too good when I say it, does it?”

She didn’t know what to say but looked away somewhat embarrassed. But then why _should_ she be embarrassed? She did everything she could—everything she thought was right. She had saved lives and had done a lot to try and make the world a better place. Better than it was.

As she thought these things, she thought she had her answer. “All I can say,” she started slowly and with a heavy sense of regret and resignation, “is that I did the best that I could in the midst of a bad situation. Whatever I may have done and whatever mistakes I might have made, just know that I didn’t do any of them because I set out to do evil things. I didn’t wake up every morning thinking, ‘How can I make the world more awful today? What can I do to make life miserable?’ Just know—whatever else you may feel about me—that I want to do good things. I _really_ do. ”

“So how do you deal with the fact that you failed hard?” he said, almost snidely.

But she seemed to take the question seriously, much to his surprise, and he watched her as she took a deep breath and seemed to be thinking about it.

At last, she seemed to have made up her mind. “I . . . well . . . .” Or at least, she’d _seemed_ as though she’d made up her mind. “I . . . I think it’s like what C.S. Lewis said,” she began. “He said, ‘History isn’t just the story of bad people doing bad things. It’s quite as much a story of people trying to do good things. But somehow, something goes wrong.’ So . . . sometimes that’s just the way things go. I just have to live with my successes just as much as I have to live with my failures. We’re all broken in some way, Nick. No one leaves the world untouched by it. All we can do is try to do a little bit better each passing day, and all I can hope is that, as time goes by, I’ll have made enough headway so that, when my time comes, which may be very soon considering the way things are going, I don’t show up in front of God emptypawed for all the time I’ve been here.”

Wilde was about to respond when he saw Hopps prick her ears and turn back toward the door.

He felt his own ears twitch as a faint commotion seemed to be filtering down the hallway.

The bunny turned back to look at him.

“What is it?” he asked.

“I think there’s some kind of fight going on,” she said as she turned away from him again and stood.

He got up and took a few steps toward her.

“Who-?”

“It sounds like Skye and . . . I dunno, there’s a few other voices around. I can’t really make anything out.”

She started forward and he followed her.

They both stepped into the hall only to find many other poking their heads out to see what was going on.

Hopps scanned ahead but saw nothing and started down the hall.

“I think it’s coming from the gym,” she said as she started to pick up the pace.

She heard Wilde start to follow after her along with other padding feet as she reached the mouth of the corridor.

Just as she reached one off the smaller common rooms, she found herself face to face with Fay who was out of breath and huffing.

“Judy! Oh, my God, Judy, please come quick! Skye and Silver are gonna get into a fight!”

Judy’s head snapped back in shock. “ _What?!_ ”

“I don’t know!” said Fay. “Skye was looking all over for Silver a while ago and she found him training in the gym. She started talking about how shitty it was that he nearly killed Jack and about justice and how she had a score to settle with him and a bunch of other stuff!”

Judy’s mouth dropped open before she composed herself a moment later.

“Please tell me that’s where the story ends.”

“Actually no,” said Fay, becoming frantic, “because he accepted her challenge! They were just about to square off whe-”

“Dad! Dad!” shouted a voice behind her. Mike came running up in a huff. “Dad,” he said, “you gotta see this! There’s a huge fight that’s abou-”

“I know!” said Wilde as both he and Judy pushed past, running quickly along with the other preds as fast as they could toward the gym.

The gymnasium had been set up just the other day with the help of Silver and some of the other preds in one of the many empty rooms in the house. They had chosen a location in the downstairs area that was very specious with a staircase leading upstairs and outside onto one of the now fallow fields.

High windows let in the setting sun, the twilight nearly enveloping the day in deep purples, reds, pinks, and blues.

Hopps, Wilde, and the others came rushing in through the double doors to find the two foxes squaring off. Practice mats had been taken off the floor so that all that lay between Skye and serious injury was a light carpet.

Immediately, Hopps made for Skye but was stopped when someone got into her way.

“Judy,” said Honey slowly, lightly shaking her head, “no”.

The bunny looked up at the badger who’d gotten in her way. “She could get killed!” shouted Hopps amid the rumbling roar of voices as more mammals poured in, having gotten word of the impending duel.

Honey shook her head. “He won’t kill her. She just needs to get this out of her system.”

“Are you out of your mind?!”

Honey light shook her head as Wilde came up to stand beside them. “I asked him not to,” started Honey, “but he . . . I dunno, he just seemed kind of resigned to the whole thing. He was pissed about it, but . . .  I dunno. He told me to just let it happen.”

“What’s the point?” asked Wilde. “We all saw what he could do out on the field earlier today. This is gonna be a short fight. I don’t even know why there are so many mammals here.”

“People were in here practicing, trying to get in some extra training with Silver or by themselves, and that’s when Skye came barging in, demanding a fight,” said Honey.

“Well, yeah, but why the hell is this so public? How did the word get spread so quickly? I mean who . . .” he trailed as he saw his son and Fay coming in from another entrance along with a host of younger mammals their age. “Ah,” finished Wilde flatly.

“We’ve seriously gotta get control of those kids,” said Hopps. “I have a feeling they’re going to be a bad influence on each other.”

Wilde nodded easily as he turned to look at the centre of the room now as Skye unsheathed her sword.

An elegant, double-edged sword with a tassel at the end and a modestly decorated hilt shimmered in the dimming light, ringing in the air as she did so.

The room fell silent as she took a stance.

“What kind of a stance is _that?_ ” asked Wilde.

“With that kind of sword? Maybe kendo style.”

Honey shook her head and the pair turned to look at her.

“Kung-fu,” she said simply. “It’s the stance.”

“Can somebody please tell me what the point of this is?” asked Wilde again.

“She needs to work out some aggression,” said Honey simply.

“By attacking a demi-god?”

“By attacking the one who nearly killed someone she loved,” affirmed Honey.

“I wanted to do the same thing when I found out about Jack,” said Hopps as she looked on.

“So did I,” said Honey. “The difference is, I had to at least try to maintain a sense of civility with him. There was no way that I could beat him, though, and that was frustrating to me. All I could do was change the location of our headquarters. I didn’t want to be near him, or have anyone else be near him, unless we had to be. Eventually it was going to come up that we would need to coordinate attacks, but I’ll tell you that I hated him in that moment. And he didn’t care, and that pissed me off even more, but there was nothing I could do about it.”

Wilde shook his head as he watched the pair start to circle each other. Silver hadn’t even drawn his blade.

“Then why-” started Wilde.

“Because Skye doesn’t have to worry about the things that I have to worry about. She just wants to hit something. She just wants to do something to not feel so powerless. Like we all do,” said Honey. “I know Skye _really_ well,” said Honey. “She’s basically a younger, more naïve version of me.”

All three of them turned when they heard the sound of clanging steel.

Skye had made the first move, charging forward quickly.

In a flash, Silver had produced his blade and quickly parried her jabs.

The arctic fox quickly withdrew and held back for a moment as she looked on.

When Silver made no move but only continued to circle her, she charged again.

Again, he easily parried the blows before dealing a blow with the flat of his blade to her side that had her stumbling back.

She caught herself and stood straight, taking her stance again, and panting lightly at the exertion.

She charged again, swinging her blade hard, and meeting his own blade, blow for blow.

“So, do you wanna tell me,” she started as she parried some of his blows, “why you think it’s okay to take the law into your own hands? Why you think it’s okay to take the lives of innocent creatures?”

She jumped back after the round of clashes, sizing him up again, attempting to take his measure.

“It’s not up to you to decide why I do what I do,” he said simply. “If you aren’t in position, you’re in no position to judge me.”

“I do, and I will,” she said as she started forward again, dashing forward as quickly as she could.

He deflected her blows easily.

“You think you can just do whatever you want?” she huffed as she continued to strike.

“I think I can do what I need to in order to ensure that you all stay safe,” he replied.

“By killing the innocent?”

“I didn’t know he was innocent.”

“Seems like that’s something you should have checked into before attempting to take someone’s life,” she said, jumping back.

“I did what I had to.”

“Then you’re terrible at your job,” she said, panting and out of breath. “You would have taken the life of an innocent rabbit and you wouldn’t’ve spent a second more thinking about it.”

He said nothing, but waited for her next attack, his gaze deepening when it never came.

She held her sword before her face before swiping it away, signalling an end to her challenge.

“This fight is nothing,” she said at length as she heaved a breath. “Absolutely nothing. To you _or_ to me,” she said as her breathing steadied.

He simply turned and started to walk away.

“You didn’t even do me the curtesy of fighting to your fullest. You think I’m some shrinking violet who isn’t worth the time to show a real fight?” she said as he continued walking.

The spectators all around them followed him with their eyes as the crowd at the far end, nearest the exit, began to part for him.

“And don’t think I didn’t notice the situation with Nick’s double. This . . . Red, I guess we’re calling him,” she said, almost questioningly.

She smirked when she saw him stop, becoming completely still.

“Hit a nerve? Pissed off that you’re so weak you have to rely on Red for help?”

Everyone felt the air change, an energy seemed to fill the space around them.

Silver slowly turned, his eyes gleaming, his body shimmering as grey armour flashed, covering him from head to foot.

He drew his sword.

In response, she cocked an eyebrow. “Oh, so now you’re ready for a fight?” she asked as she took up her stance.

“I’m ready to show you why I command the respect that I do.”

The whole room seemed to be holding its breath.

Honey and Hopps took a deep breath with the little bunny biting her lower lip.

“Is . . . he’s not gonna kill her, is he?” whispered Wilde timidly as leant over to Honey.

Honey worried her lip in an uncharacteristically worried gestured as she took a deep breath. “He . . . might . . . .”

Silver’s ears twitched and he smirked to himself, having heard them.

Both Silver and Skye seemed to be waiting for the other to make a move.

In a flash, Skye was on him.

He glanced her first blow and parried her second.

She gave a cry of surprise when her blade was pulled downward.

In a shimmering flash of steel and iron, Silver came down with a heavy blow to the her blade.

Before she could register what had just happened, Silver delivered a spinning kick to her side.

The force of the kick sent her flying several feet and landing heavily on the thinly carpeted floor.

“Oof!” she shouted as the wind was knocked out of her. She groaned as she slid several feet besides, letting out a moan as she rolled onto her back.

Not one to take things lying down, she quickly recovered herself, pushing past the pain and making to get up.

She’d only managed to push herself up onto her elbows when she felt tingling cold of sharp steel against her throat.

“Your willingness to continue the battle past the point in which you’ve lost your weapon is admirable, but I’m not your enemy, though you clearly see me as one. Yield.”

She eyed him angrily but said nothing.

“You know the rules,” he said, his voice flat and uncompromising. “Yield.”

“You realise,” she said slowly as she struggled to breathe, “that the only reason you’ve gotten away with what you have is because there’s no one here who can stop you.”

“Yield,” he replied.

“The _only_ reason anyone here gives you even a modicum of deference and respect is out of fear, right? No one here is working with you out of respect for you as an individual. They respect your power.”

He pressed the blade into her throat. “If you’re done—if you’ve got that all off your chest now—yield.”

She sighed in annoyance.

“I yield,” she said flatly.

She was looking him right in the eyes, and in spite of her words, the challenge was still evident in her gaze.

She didn’t budge.

At last, he withdrew his blade, and she quickly leapt to her feet. He watched her, somewhat impressed that to all but the well-trained eye, it would appeared that she’d sustained no injury from him.

“You need to work on your form,” he said.

He kicked the shorn hilt of what had once been her sword in her direction.

“Be thankful that I’m not your enemy,” he continued. "Were I the murderous being you believed me to be, you wouldn't be walking away.”

She shrugged her shoulders and looked away nonchalantly.

“There’s worse than that awaiting you if you keep up your reckless attitude. Don’t do it again, and learn to mind your place. I’m better than you. Name a skill: I’m better than you. You can either submit to my training and call me your teacher or you can neglect the duty you owe yourself and those for whom you fight to be the best soldier you can be. Because I can assure you: The dangers you face outside of this gym and outside of this house will not be as forbearing as I’ve been up to this point. When the human or his minions come after you, I can guarantee you that you will _not_ be walking away from the fight at all. Have I made myself perfectly clear?”

Rubbing her smarting cheek, she nodded.

The stunned crowd parted as he turned away, leaving the gym.

“Don’t let your pride get in the way of what’s best for you,” he called behind him.

“I’ll admit,” she called behind his retreating form, “your skill has earned a measure of my respect.”

“When the training I put you through saves your ass, I expect to have earned it all.”

And with that he was gone.

For a brief moment, no one said anything.

Suddenly, Honey clapped her paws together.

“All right!” she shouted loudly, “Show’s over now! Time to get back to training!”

There was a disturbance in the atmosphere as a dull murmur of voices echoed off the vaulted walls of the room

As mammals milled about, either leaving, getting back to work, or teaming up with their training partners again.

Wilde let out a breath he didn’t know he’d been holding and looked over and Hopps and Honey who were still stunned by the display.

Skye caught their eyes and started over toward them after going over and picking up what remained of her blade.

She was looking down at her blade as she came over toward them. “He cut through it like butter,” she said as she reached them. “Look at that!” she said to Honey as she tilted the shorn end of the blade toward the badger.

Hopps sucked in a breath as she looked at it, somewhat unnerved by Skye’s almost breezy attitude through the whole thing.

“Aren’t you  . . . I mean, it just seems like you’re taking this kind of lightly,” said Hopps.

Skye shrugged. “He seems like the type who likes to talk big. Likes to throw his weight around. If I can get him royally pissed off and he _still_ leaves me with an injury I can walk away from, there’s no way he has any intention of hurting anybody here. He’s just like the hardass trainers we had back when we were cadets, _right Honey._ ”

“Training wasn’t that hard,” replied Honey with a smirk.

“Yeah, ‘cause you fucked him,” Skye laughed before frowning at Honey’s saddened expression.

“I’m sorry,” said Skye quickly. “I . . . I didn’t mean to bring him up.”

“No it’s fine,” said Honey as she nodded thoughtfully. “He was a good male and a good husband. It’s just . . . those days are so long ago,” laughed Honey with a slight tremor in her voice.

Skye coughed and looked back to the place near the door where Silver’d been moments before he’d vanished.

“Anyway,” continued Skye in a bid to redirect the conversation, “it just seems like Silver also likes to throw his weight around. I don’t get why you guys are so freaked out by him.”

“He could kill us all in a second if he wanted to,” Wilde said.

“All of our trainers in those days could have killed us—they _all_ had access to heavy weapons,” she replied, looking at the fox as though she’d only just registered his presence. “And you are?” she asked as she fully turned her gaze to him.

“You know who Nick is,” said Honey as she narrowed her gaze.

Honey nodded. “I know who Nick is, but the last time I heard, there were two of them. I didn’t know if this was Silver’s toy boy or your contact in Happy Town turned shithead,” she replied as she looked in Wilde’s direction. “I see now you’re the shithead.”

Wilde bit his lower lip and growled in his throat slightly.

“Growl all you like,” said Skye as she wiped off her forehead. “You betray my friends or try to get any one of my buddies killed, you’re a shithead in my book.”

“He _is_ at least trying to work with me,” supplied Hopps lamely.

“Talk to me in a week, Bon-Bon, and if he’s still giving you any crap I’ll gladly kick the good doctor’s ass, blade or no blade,” she said, hefting the broken hilt.

“Uh . . . he’s actually behaving himself quite well,” supplied Hopps. “And . . . I mean . . . it’s not like I can’t understand . . . his concerns-”

“That’s very good for you, but I can’t. You’re letting him and everyone else get to you,” replied the arctic fox. “Don’t let anybody take away your badass persona,” she finished with a smirk.

“I could tell that she was a softie from the moment I saw her,” said Wilde. “She just pretends to be hardboiled,” he smiled.

“No,” said Skye flatly.

“No, ‘what’?” he asked, his eyebrows knit in confusion.

“I mean don’t do that,” she replied sternly.

“Don’t do what?” he asked.

“Don’t you dare act like you know her. If you knew the first thing about her, you’d know that she isn’t your enemy. If you knew the first thing about any one of us, you’d’ve never made the accusations against Honey and Hopps that you did.”

Wilde raised his eyebrows in response.

“Oh yeah,” said Skye as she eyed Wilde coldly, “Honey filled me in on all the shit that went down in the past five or six days, the way you crapped all over her and Judy and the whole operation we’ve been trying to get off the ground here after the _very major setback_ of having the entire city taken from us as well as having two sub-districts—Happy Town and Little Rodentia—ripped out of our paws.”

“Oh, like you’re one to talk?” returned Wilde, gesturing with his paws. “We all heard what you said about Jack during your fight with Silver. That’s what all of this was about! You needed to teach him a lesson and let him know just where things stood between the two of you. You _know_ that Silver’s trying to train the troops here with Honey’s permission and you went ahead and fought him anyway. Where’s your high-and-mighty call for unity when it comes to _him?!_ ”

“It’s not even _almost_ the same thing.”

“Yeah, yeah,” he muttered, “trust me, I know the spiel already. I could recite it in my sleep! ‘Judy’s not bad, you’re misjudging her, you don’t know what she’s been through, bla-bla-bla!’” he snorted. “When the hell is anybody going to acknowledge the fact that preds from all over the Zootopia have a legitimate fucking complaint about the way she handled her situation! You all talk about _her_ feelings, well what about fucking _mine!_ What about my _son’s!”_

“Alright,” said Skye as Hopps seemed to stand back a little, “we’ve acknowledged your feelings! We know that you’re hurt! We get the situation sucked! But you don’t just get to throw that out there without having been in our position. So tell me, _Doctor_ , how would you have handled her assignment?”

“I wouldn’t have taken it in the first place!” he growled.

“Alright, but if not you then _who?!_ ” replied Honey. “ _Someone **had**_ to do the job we asked her to do. If it wasn’t her, it was going to have to be _somebody_. We _needed_ somebody to infiltrate the ZPD and free preds who’d been captured and sentenced to death. We needed somebody who could network with us while actually _in_ the ZPD. That individual was going to _have_ to be someone willing to become buddy-buddy Swinton. We _needed_ someone to do it. And if wasn’t Judy it was going to have to be somebody else. Maybe Cevilla. I don’t know who, but it was going to have to be _someone_. And if you don’t like, it, I’m sorry, but that’s the name of the game of espionage.”

Wilde stepped back from all three of them, looking at them as though they were lunatics.

“Why in the hell did someone _have_ to do what she was doing? Don’t you get the damage she did?! Doesn’t that _count_ for _anything at all?_ ”

Skye eyed him stoically. “No. Not at all. It counts for absolutely nothing when compared to everything we gained because of what she was doing for us.”

Wilde closed his mouth, stunned into silence for a moment before, “You’re monsters. You don’t care about any of us, you just care about your bottom line. How could you do this?” he said, looking between Skye and Honey, “How could you betray your own kind like that?”

“Just what the hell do you think our bottom line _is?_ ” questioned Honey, a harsh growl in her voice.

But he seemed not to have heard them.

“Hey!” said Honey, more forcefully now. Wilde looked up at her. “ _What_ do you think our bottom line _is?_ ”

He thought for a moment but couldn’t seem to answer, either because he was being obtuse or he didn’t want to admit he might have made an error.

“Nick,” said Hopps coming forward slightly, “I know we were just talking about this, but you _know_ that it was never my intention to actually hurt anybody.”

Wilde let out a sigh. “I _know_ that. It’s just . . .” he trailed as he looked at her. “It hurts. You hurt us. You hurt my son, even if you didn’t mean to.”

Skye stepped forward. “You never answered Honey’s question,” she said, the armour gone from her voice. “What do you think the bottom line is? For _any_ of us? Why do you think we’re all here?” she said as she gestured around her.

Wilde sighed. “You want to protect the city. You want to make Zootopia a better place,” he nearly spat, his tone resigned.

“That’s part of it,” said Skye. “ _My_ bottom line is creating a place where everyone can live in peace and harmony. Or relative peace. Last time I checked, Shangri-La is still hidden away in the mountains somewhere, Heaven is in the clouds, and Avalon is on a lost island. We don’t get peace here on Earth,” she said, shaking her head. “What we get is a better way forward, with everyone moving forward together.”

“No matter who you have to step on along the way?” asked Wilde. “It definitely feels like the world was definitely made a worse place while Hopps was ‘doing her job.’”

“That’s only because you never got to see the world as it might have been without Hopps.” replied Honey. “The world is definitely better off for all the mammals she saved. All the children. The world—Zootopia, anyway—is definitely better off for what she did.”

Skye nodded and shrugged, crossing her arms. “If she hadn’t been doing what she was doing, your place would’ve gone down a long ass time ago. Mr. Big, Koslov, Weaselton, _your son,_ ” she said pointedly, “would all have been tortured and killed.” She paused in thought for a moment. “Happy Town would have been annexed and razed on a much faster time table,” she continued, musing now. “And if Swinton and the rest of her gang are able to weaponise greater quantities of the night howler serum, we’re all in deep shit. And then it won’t matter who fights whom. Just have planes drop bombs full of the stuff over any area you want and watch the population destroy itself.”

Wilde looked down and let out a breath.

“And if you still don’t believe Skye or me,” said Honey, breaking in through the tension, “feel free to take a look at Hopps’ record. Take a look at all the information that she gathered for us and _then_ tell me that what she did wasn’t necessary. Imagine what would have happened in the scenario where we _didn’t_ get the information she fed us.”

He shook his head. “If she didn’t gather the intel, someone else would have,” Wilde countered.

“ _Not_ without her position or clearance,” returned Honey, her voice taking on an icy undertone. “Someone was going to end up in the same boat as Hopps: Advocating for Swinton’s pet causes, probably coming out on the news as anti-pred, etcetera. It’s what comes with the turf of becoming someone’s lackey,” she paused. She showed her palms in a bid for understanding. “Someone was going to have to get close enough to the system to be able to see bits and pieces of how the apparatus works and report back to us. Someone who was still in a position to be shaped and ordered around by them while still being a part of the inner circle. And that just happened to be Hopps.”

There was a silence that hung in the air around them and nothing was said for a few moments.

“This may be a bit awkward to bring up now,” started Hopps, somewhat leery of the tension around them, “but I have to get back to work, so if you all don’t mind . . .” she trailed.

Honey nodded carefully as she turned to Hopps. “Yeah, sorry, emotions are running high.”

Wilde was looking down in thought, his eyebrows furrowed together in concentration, as though he were debating with himself.

“For what it’s worth,” said Hopps stepping forward, “I want to let you know that I really am sorry for hurting you, Nick. And everyone. It’s . . . hard, I know, to hear ‘I’m sorry’ from me, because if I had things to do over again and take them back, I wouldn’t—I know I told you that already,” she sighed. “I still think that I made the right choice. What I’m sorry for is that they hurt you.”

“I’m sure it tears you up inside,” he said flatly.

“Nick . . .” Honey reprimanded before Hopps stopped her, holding out a paw.

“Nick,” Hopps continued, “it _does_ tear me up inside. None of this was _planned_. We’re in the middle of a bad situation. It’s nobody’s _fault_ —well, Swinton’s and the Human’s, yeah—but . . . I mean, this is what we have on our paws. And I had to make a choice between doing nothing and letting someone else take up that responsibility: be the bad guy, gather the info, stand by and do nothing and pretend not to care when preds all around me were being tortured or worse. It’s soul sucking, Nick. If you feel like you need to blame me, fine—because I did hurt you and lots of other mammals. But try to understand my position.”

“Try to-” he cut himself off, not quite able to believe what he was hearing. “Try to put myself in your position? How about you put yourself in mine?”

“I have!” she exclaimed, reaching the end of her rope, “Which is why I’m not telling you to not be angry! I understand your feelings, Nick! Why can’t you understand mine? We have to work together, Nick, and understanding doesn’t go one way. Honey and everybody else is asking you to put yourself in my position and you’re not doing it! You’re telling me that if you were in a position to get to the heart of what was wrong with the city that you would’ve just left?”

“If Honey came to me and asked me the question that she asked you,” he started fiercely, “I would have said, _‘No!’_ I would have turned and run the other way. I would have packed my things if we knew what we were up against and never returned.”

Hopps looked taken aback for a moment before understanding dawned in her eyes. “That’s right,” she said. “You’re not like me.”

Wilde raised his eyebrow and folded his arms expectantly. “No, I’m not.”

“When we first got here,” she said, seemingly somewhere else, “I remember you saying that you wanted to run away. You wanted to leave here right away, and we all had to convince you to stay,” she said, looking at him as she came back to the present. “You’re a coward.”

At that, his face became a mask of fury. “Look at me!” he shouted. His voice echoed off the walls of the gym. Everyone in the room turned to look at them. “Look at me!” he shouted again. “What am I?!”

Hopps, who had taken several steps back, looked up at Wilde, confusion written in her face. “I-I . . . _what?_ ”

“What am I? What am I?” he insisted, demanding an answer.

“A-a fox,” she stammered.

“What else am I?”

“A-a male.”

“And what _else?_ ” he asked.

“A . . . I don’t know! A doctor?”

“Give the girl a prize!” he shouted angrily. “Yes, I’m a doctor,” he said, his voice becoming a tense whisper, hoarse from shouting. “And one of the things that I pledged to do as a doctor was what?”

Hopps shook her head, at a loss.

He glared at her angrily. “’I will use treatment,” he quoted, “to help the sick according to my ability and judgment, but never with a view to injury and wrong-doing. Neither will I administer a poison to anybody when asked to do so, nor will I suggest such a course,” he said. “It a part of the Hippocratic oath I took. So you’re asking me—a doctor—whether _I_ have the same temperament as you? Whether I could have caused any harm with the aim of reaching my goals? The first rule in medicine is to do no harm. So you’re asking me whether I might ever have embarked on a course of action that would have caused harm in the process of curing this situation! You guys fighting Zootopia—and everything else that’s wrong in the city—is like administering chemo to an already-terminal patient! It’s just going to make the end quicker and the suffering more acute!”

“Zootopia isn’t _terminal!_ ” shouted Hopps. “It’s salvageable! It’s all salvageable! And I did the best that I could to try to make things better!”

Wilde sighed, the anger leaving his voice. “Yeah, I know you were doing your best, Judy, but at what cost—that’s what I’m asking. You asked me why I can’t really put myself in your position and now you know why. I can’t see myself injuring the lives of other’s in order to make some statement or achieve some goal. I’m not a strategist, my focus is on individuals, on mammals and the wellbeing of those around me. I can’t afford to let myself lose sight of the fact that there are animals around me who were hurt and injured by policies that you advocated for.” He let out a sigh and looked away from the trio as he thought, the silence deafening as he realised everyone in the gym was looking at them, now.

“Can I just asked you what you thought you were getting yourself into when you started working for me and for COR?” asked Honey. “Did you think that you and the guard and everyone else were going to tickle Swinton and everybody else to death? Did you think that we would just make them leave? I mean, you talk about doing no harm, but you were part of a system that was going to harm _somebody._ ”

“That was . . . different,” he started. “What she did,” he said, referring to Hopps, “was perpetuate institutional policies that were aimed at eradicating preds like me and you.”

“Nick, this was always heading to _war,_ ” said Honey. “This was never going to be a battle that ended in a stalemate. Someone was going to have to lose! And before you say that Judy created this atmosphere, she _didn’t._ The guard existed in some form well before Judy was ever in any prominent position and they were _needed_.”

“Yeah,” he started, “but we never perpetuated an evil system in order to achieve our goals.”

“You were doing the same thing,” returned Honey. “If evil is doing harm to someone, then you were doing evil—someone was going to end up being hurt by your tacit participation in the counter movement we were running in Happy Town.”

He was momentarily stumped and he shook his head slightly as he looked down. “I can’t argue with you,” he said as he mulled. “I just . . . I can’t put my finger on it, but there’s something not quite right about your thinking.” He looked up at them, eyeing them each in turn, saving the last for Judy. “I can’t put myself in your place. I understand what you did on an intellectual level, but I can’t identify myself with it. What you did feels . . . different to me, and I don’t like what you did. I don’t like the considerations you had to make.”

He stopped again in thought.

“I get that you want a truce,” started Wilde, working through his thoughts, “and I’m willing to play ball. Maybe . . . it’ll be easier now that we all know where we stand. Maybe I need to do some more thinking, maybe you guys do too.”

“You know I’m not a fan of unresolved tension,” said Honey.

“Well, it’s just the way things are,” he replied. “It’s not right that you should have to do evil things in order to defeat evil,” he said.

Honey nodded. “Because for you, good and evil are two lines that never cross. But I’ll tell you something: the colour grey exists for a reason. And if England is known for its one-thousand shades of green, Zootopia is known for its one-thousand shades of grey. Do me a favour—take a look at the information that Hopps gathered for us in your off time. Take your time and look at the lives she saved. Dwell on them and ponder what might have happened if someone—it doesn’t need to be her—hadn’t been there to gather that information and maybe you’ll see why _someone_ had to do the job she was doing.”

He looked at Hopps, his expression passive. “I . . . I’ll try,” he said. “I mean,” he continued as he wiped his paw over his face, “I’ll take a look at them and . . . see what it is you’re talking about. Not that I don’t trust you guys, it’s just . . . a lot to take in at the moment.”

There was another long pause as the four of them stood in relative silence for a few moments, as though collectively digesting everything that had been said.

Looking around, Hopps noticed that everyone was looking at them, including one of her sisters who seemed to be there for some reason, sitting on one of the chairs along one of the far walls.

“We should get back to work,” said Wilde as he eyed Hopps carefully, his tone resigned, signalling he was tired of arguing.

The bunny turned back to smiled nervously and nodded, her smile fading as she took up behind him.

Skye and Honey stood watching them as they headed toward the door they’d come through.

Honey frowned and glanced at Skye out of the corner of her eye. “Do you think . . .” she trailed.

“Oh yeah,” said Skye nodding back at her friend, “they’re definitely gonna fuck at some point.”

-.-.-.-

Groe was determined as he walked down the halls of the Hopps residence.

He had seen the vixen before some five years ago, met her when she became what he supposed was one of the latest members of the Happy Town guard.

After sharing what was undoubtedly for him a memorable night, he couldn’t help but feel disappointed when what he thought was going to be a longer-lasting relationship ended with him being ghosted, completely and totally, with no one at the Guard knowing where she was, _who_ she was, or what had become of her.

He had seen her fight, her white silken fur fluttering lightly, her eyes—the deep colour of sapphire glinting in the light—reminded him of that night.

 _"It had ended all too quickly,"_ he thought with a growl.

His steps became more determined as he followed her unique scent—like rose water—as he headed in the direction he’d seen her go with Jack.

He was coming up on the end of a tunnel, and as his vision cleared, his eyes switching their focus from dark to light, he saw her sitting with Jack.

They were both reclined chatting about apparently nothing as they easily shared each other’s space.

His head rested in her lap as he lay on his back as she absently ran her fingers through the fur on his head.

 _‘Well, shit! They’re together,’_ he thought as he came to a stop at the edge of the tunnel.

Still, a part of him couldn’t help but hope that he could have, perhaps, just _one_ more night with her . . . .

“Bijou?” he asked as he looked at her.

Skye turned and eyed him out of the corner of her eye before she suddenly recognised who he was and gave him her full attention.

“Groe!” she exclaimed, a slight smile on her face, “it’s been a long time.”

Jack frowned up at her before turning his head to the side in order to regard the wolf.

“Bijou?” said Jack questioningly.

Groe nodded slightly. “Yeah, I’m talking to her.”

“Her name’s Skye,” replied Jack as he looked up again. “Who is he?”

Skye cocked an eyebrow and looked down at her lover. “A wolf I fucked five years ago when I was on assignment,” she replied easily, though not cruelly. “Honestly,” she said as she looked at Groe, “a handjob would've done it,” she finished honestly, giving him a crooked smile. “Looks like I’ve been found out . . .” she trailed.

“You were on assignment?” asked Jack.

She nodded. “Yeah, back when Honey was a regular crew member. The higher ups were trying to figure out if she’d make a good leader for this wing of COR.” She looked at Groe. “Sorry . . .” she finished sheepishly.

Groe looked at her for a second before his brain was finally able to absorb what she was telling him: That he’d been a lay—a patsy she could pump for information. On Honey of all creatures?

He let out a few flabbergasted huffs as he tried to mend his pride. “So when we were tied and you said all those things, it was a lie?”

“You lied when you told me you could go all night, so I think we're about even,” she replied jovially.

He was missing the joke.

“You're a fucking vixen. Have you fucking seen yourself? A _tod_ couldn't go all night!”

“Groe . . .” she sighed, “meet Jack. On his first try, he went all night,” she smirked. “I mean, I know I wasn't the first fuck you ever had, but be honest: I was the first female you ever knotted.”

She raised an eyebrow to make her point.

The wolf's hackles rose at that. “Oh yeah?!” he growled. “I know that wasn't your first knot from how long it took to catch!”

“Or it just took you a bit longer to get there,” she replied easily.

“Wait,” said Jack as he turned to Skye, “don’t canine males need to knot in order to come?” he asked questioningly.

Skye nodded slightly. “Yup. It’s weird with us canines. Guys joke that they get two virginities: the first time they fuck and the first time they knot. Usually guys lose both at once, but sometimes they’re nervous their first time—or even the first few times—and it’s just not happening and they just don’t come. It happens to a lot of guys. And it has nothing to do with good or bad sex, because trust me, no woman is complaining if the guy takes a bit longer,” she said as she eyed the wolf who was now quite red. “It’s just that . . . you know, a lady has a sense about these kinds of things. I knew it,” she said as she turned to the wolf. “I knew it from the look of surprise on your face—I was your first tie, wasn’t I?”

When she saw the look on his face, she relented. “Look, I don't want you to think it was all bad,” she said. “For what it's worth, you _were_ the biggest I've ever had. And . . . you were the fastest to make me cum. In fact,” she said rising to her feet, “If it’s alright with Jack, I wouldn't mind a repeat,” she smirked.

Slowly, she brushed by him, letting her tail brush sensually along his legs as she passed.

Groe turned to look at her. “I've learned a lot since then. I could put Jack to shame,” he challenged, showing his teeth in a smirk.

She laughed and turned away.

“So you're going to taunt that you could show me up in a rematch and then walk away?” the wolf laughed.

She stopped, looking at him before looking back at Jack and then looking back to Groe, stepping up to him and running her paws up his chest, cocking an eyebrow and winking. “The challenge is the same as what you promised me last time: All night.”’

Groe appeared genuinely shocked for a moment. “And uh . . .” he said as he looked back at Jack who was texting on his phone, “are you sure you’re okay with this? I mean . . . aren’t the two of you kind of together?”

Jack shrugged slightly, looking down at his phone. “It’s the life of a spy. We’ve both been with other people and we have a secure open relationship. We’re not exclusively committed to each other, if that’s what you’re asking.” The bunny looked back to his phone. “I know where she stands with me, so if you guys wanna have a game, go right on ahead,” he said as he stood up, giving Skye a quick peck on the cheek. “She’s coming back to my room in the morning,” he finished with a note of certainty.

She smiled at him and caressed his cheek before he turned and walked out of the common room.

“Right this way,” she said, taking his paw.

She led him upstairs, and he felt himself harden at the prospect that lay before him.

The situation was so surreal. A vixen like her in an open relationship with Jack Savage?

 _"But that’s what this was,"_ he mused.

As she led him into her room and he watched her as she began to strip, he felt his paws immediately heading to his shirt which he quickly pulled off.

His eyes were glued to watching her strip out of her gym clothes—a white tank-top and a work-out brassier beneath it which she quickly removed.

He quickly fumbled with his own belt and pants, shaking out of his boxers as he tried to keep a close eye on the vixen before him.

“No waiting,” she murmured as she reached out a paw.

“Uh . . .” he murmured, on the one hand utterly dazzled by her perfect form and at once befuddled by the oddness of the situation he was facing. If he were in Jack’s place, he didn’t think he’d ever be able to keep his paws off her.

“You coming?” she asked as she backed up toward the bed.

He could only stare at her.

 _‘C’mon, man! What the hell are you waiting for? You asked for this fucking challenge! Don’t punk out now!’_ his mind shouted.

Stepping forward, he carefully nudged her clothes to the side before joining her on the bed.

She put her paws on his shoulders as he moved over her before settling in-between her thighs.

“You ready for round two?” he asked as he ran his length along her moist folds.

“Oh please,” she said rolling her eyes, “cut out the bravado. I wanna have fun, and you wanna have fun. I can tell you right now, you’ll be done in fifteen minutes tops.”

“I told you, I’ve had practice since then,” he said as he teased her opening.

“You’re not the only one.”

With that, she surprised him by wrapping her legs around his waist and drawing him forward.

He growled for a moment before he felt the tip of his member find the warmth of her core. She lifted her hips, drawing him further in, before gently gyrating, letting him feel her walls surrounding him entirely.

Not one to be outdone, he quickly thrust in, hoping to shock her with the swift intrusion.

To his slight surprise, the only sound that left her lips was an accepting moan instead of the challenge.

Immediately, the rueful smirk on his face was wiped away.

He looked down at her, holding her in his arms gently.

She . . . she was _into_ it, he thought.

“Oh! God, yes!” she murmured, her breath shuddering. “Again,” she murmured as she looked into his eyes, “harder, deeper!”

“You want more, huh?” he grinned as he began a slow pace.

She nodded as she wrapped her arms around him, letting her paws run down his back.

“Keep moving,” she shuddered. “Ah! Oh, yeah!’ she whispered breathlessly as he continued his movements.

Gradually, he worked them up to a faster pace, unable to hold himself off for that long in spite of his bold words earlier.

“God, yeah! Fuck, it’s been too long!” he growled as he continued his movements.

She nodded, egging him on with her words, moaning, and sighing as she called his name.

Pleasure poured into her as he tried as best he could to keep himself abreast of her.

It had been some time since his last mating, however, and he felt his body’s natural instincts driving him to pick up the pace.

He let out a growl and withdrew.

Panting tiredly he raked her body with a lusty gaze.

She looked at him, puzzled. “Wh-wha-”

“Turn around,” he whispered.

“Ah, wanning to go ‘natural style,’ eh?” she smirked lightly as rolled over, aiming her rear upward and brushing aside her tail.

His heart melted and he positively throbbed as a primal force broke loose deep in his soul.

Bet or no bet, he wasn’t sure he was gonna win this one.

He grabbed her waist and thrust in, hard. He growled, savouring the feel of the new position before digging his claws into her waist slightly before beginning a pounding pace.

The change in her body, the feeling of aiming down into her waiting folds had him growling like a tiger as he pushed himself into her again and again, thrusting deeper and deeper into her body, feeling her passage make way for his length, parting for him—around him—as his hips quickened their pace out of instinct.

Skye pushed back hard as he moved faster and faster.

“Harder!” she cried. “God, yes! Harder!” she shouted as the new angle struck the point of pleasure deep within her.

She braced herself as he leant over her, gripping her torso as he continued to rock.

“Goddamn, you feel so good!”

She let out another cry. “God, so do you! Ah, God!”

She crushed her eyes shut and let out a moan as she felt the pleasure building within her. The waves of pleasure mounted, cycling through her in a continual mill of pleasure that fed itself in a never-ending circuit.

She pushed back against his thrusts, hard. “H-ha! Hey, I . . . I’m close!” she shouted as his movements spiked her pleasure.

She gripped the sheets and let out a high-pitched moan as he rode her along the edge for a matter a few moments.

At last, she cried out beneath him as a bomb of pleasure burst as he thrust deep within her. Her soft petals clenched him as an orgasm swoll through her like the waves of the oceans, carrying her on warm waters of pleasure that seemed to flow from a fountain of pure pleasure at the point where his body joined hears.

She let her voice ring out beneath him with abandon as she clutched the bedsheets, biting and clenching her teeth as she rode out her pleasure.

He couldn’t take it anymore!

He stiffened his legs, bracing his feet for traction on the bed as he growled and set a shallow pace even as he felt her body clenching around him.

Faster and faster he moved as he held himself above her.

He felt his knot forming quickly, and he pushed it against her, driven by instinct.

Forgetting the bet as the pleasure swept around him, he let out a howl and pushed himself into her.

His knot teased her inner folds again and again as he worked himself into her. Lifting his head to heaven, he thanked God when he felt his knot slip past her entrance, swelling almost instantly as he connected with her, tied with her, in the most intimate way his body would allow.

“Skye!” he shouted, his eyes clenched shut, nearly faltering at the intensity of the ecstasy that roared through his body.

He felt his knot catch immediately. He instantly hunched over her and gripped her, roaring into her neck as his length began to pulse with his essence.

She clenched around his length more tightly as he gave himself over to her and the pleasure. His mind blank as he could only focus on giving his seed to the female under him.

This was enough, as far as he was concerned.

At last, as he felt the last ebbs of his pleasure subsided, settling into his orgasm, he murmured her name—her real name—and collapsed.

She let her body fall, the both of them heaped together in a molten mountain of satisfied hunger and weary flesh.

Both of them were panting heavily as he turned them to the side.

Gently she ran her paw behind her along the side of his body.

She nudged him, indicating that he should roll onto his back.

He did so, and as she straddled him, she expertly twisted herself around on him.

He let out a hiss of pleasure as he felt her rotating on his knot.

“Oh my fucking God!” he breathed at the sensation and the sight of her, “You could tempt a fucking saint!” he cried as he felt himself continue to spill into her body.

When she was face to face with him, she laid down on his chest and allowed him, once again, to roll them to the side.

 She reached out a paw and stroked his cheek before carefully stroking his chest and torso as their breathing returned to normal. Relaxing as she felt his member locked within as it continued releasing his warmth inside of her.

At last, when both of them had calmed, she smiled.

“You promised me all night,” she smirked.

He smiled back lazily. “This was just round one.”

“Hmmm . . .” she murmured, “I don’t think that quite counts.’

“You never proscribed it,” he laughed as he propped himself up on one elbow.

“True,” she said shrugging. “Still, that was only fifteen minutes. Maybe we shou-”

Jack burst into the room with a heavy thud, out of breath and wearing a deeply concerned look.

Immediately, Groe tried to cover them, growling possessively.

 “Guys!” shouted Jack quickly as he took in the scene, “We’ve got a _huge_ problem! It’s all hands on deck! Hurry!”

Groe rolled his eyes. “What’s the pro-” and then the lights went out.

“Fuck! Oh shit, fuck!” said Jack as he turned back to the door. “You two need to get un-tied and dressed quickly. This is gonna be really fucking bad!”

“What is it?” asked Skye worriedly as she began to twist, earning a yelp from Groe.

Both of them stopped and looked at Jack as he pulled his weapon and turned back to the two of them.

“It’s here,” he said.

 


End file.
